Ceremony of Innocence
by FortyFourReasons
Summary: Twenty-seven years after Shepard changed the fabric of the galaxy forever, Tali must help Garrus's human daughter return to Earth in order to save the daughter of Shepard and Liara from a neo-Cerberus sect. Sequel to High Class Hostage. References to femShep/Garrus. Post-ME3 (Synthesis).
1. Prologue: Prisoner 2186

**A/N:**

Here we go! Just a few things you should know...

1) This is the sequel to _High Class Hostage. _You can track that story down through my profile. For those of you who need a refresher, I've started the prologue off with a brief re-cap of what happened. _High Class Hostage _was my attempt to work through some of the potential problems that could arise from the Synthesis ending and it was written prior to the extended cut release. So, like the first story, this sequel doesn't take into account any of the events and changes that came about as a result of the extended cut.

2) The plan is for regular updates. I'm trying for about three times a week. Ultimately the story will be twenty chapters (including the prologue and epilogue).

3) Reviews are very, very much appreciated! The advantage of posting one chapter at a time is that I can respond to reviews and incorporate your helpful feedback into future chapters. Which only makes the story better. Hurrah for better stories!

4) *Here there be spoilers!* for all three ME games and all DLC. Ye have been warned! Also, Rated T for violence, some adult themes, etc.

5) Finally, I still don't own anything from the Mass Effect universe. That privilege belongs to Bioware/EA. Obviously.

* * *

The story so far…

_Shepard's final choice affected the galaxy she fought for in ways that she could not anticipate: the mass relays were destroyed, synthetics (including ships and mechs) became sentient, and organics have gained various machine-based abilities. Without the relays, the fleets of the galaxy were forced to make decades-long sojourns back to their homeworlds. Two of Shepard's non-human companions, however, chose to remain on Earth._

_Liara T'Soni continued her work as the Shadow Broker from Earth, raising an asari daughter, Tiersa, but with a secret. When she gave Shepard one last gift before the final assault in London, Liara did not tell Shepard that this "gift" was more than an exchange of thoughts: Tiersa is the product of that union._

_Upon discovering this, Garrus Vakarian was appalled at what Liara had done. Broken, he wandered Earth for nearly ten years before circumstances placed a human orphan under his care. Raising Adrienna as his own daughter, he achieved a strange kind of peace that was interrupted with the news of Liara's violent death…and Tiersa's unexpected arrival at his home. _

_For a year, Tiersa lived with Garrus and Adrienna. Then Adrienna was kidnapped by a group of mercenaries looking for revenge against Archangel. During her rescue, Garrus was killed…but then brought back to life by a part of Shepard that had become imbued in the new DNA created by the Synthesis. Adrienna and Tiersa, believing Garrus to be dead, followed his final instructions and departed Earth for Rannoch on a geth ship._

_In the meantime, Tali had returned to Rannoch after the Reaper War. As the Admiral in charge of geth-quarian relations, she helped her people re-populate their homeworld and become a great civilization once again—assisted, in no small part, by the exceptional FTL technology gifted by the geth. Tali raised a family of three children in a beautiful house she built on Rannoch. And then she got a communication that Garrus was dead. And that Adrienna and Tiersa were coming to Rannoch to live with her._

_Now it is 2213 AD: twenty-seven years after Synthesis changed the galaxy forever. And six years after Tiersa T'Soni and Adrienna Vakarian departed for Earth…_

* * *

**Chapter 1: Prologue: Prisoner #2186**

There was nothing Trooper Two-Zeta-Seven disliked more than guarding this particular prisoner. Today, it was especially irritating because he had been assigned to this cell with Trooper Eight-Tau-Eight, who had a tendency to whistle through his nose when he breathed. The annoyance was only amplified whenever Eight-Tau-Eight switched on his helmet mic. As Two-Zeta-Seven fell into his position on the other side of the cell's door from Eight-Tau-Eight, he ignored the other trooper's nod, hoping that would be enough to avoid conversation.

Sometimes during particularly painful guard duties like these ones, Two-Zeta-Seven would try to remember what he had once been. He could remember a woman with sea-green eyes and a tumble of red curls. And he could remember a little boy whom he had once carried around in his arms. The boy had watched him with eyes the same color as the woman's. There had been a planet. Not Earth, but a colony world whose virgin soil was just budding with imported crops for the first time in its entire history. He could remember the satisfaction of watching the greenness burst through the shadowy topsoil: light brought forth from the darkness all due to the power of his own human hands and tools and intelligence.

And he could remember how all this had changed when the ships had descended from the sky: those ships, huge and dark and terrifyingly apathetic to the beings that fled before them. He'd barely managed to get his family into the colony's evac transports in time. And then they had nowhere else left to go but a planet that had promised shelter from the storms of war: a sanctuary.

But then…then there had been pain. Tests and injections and implants. He could remember screaming that woman's name and perhaps his own name, though he could not remember what either of those names were now. And then there had been nothing. Nothing but that smooth, intoxicating voice that told him everything he needed to do and everywhere he needed to go.

The voice had told him where to go: how to fall into formation with the other troopers around him. It had told him what to do: how to pull the trigger of a submachine gun at a family cowering against a wall. The voice had been everything, and everything that had come before…the woman's bright smile, the way the boy would sprint into his arms, the feel of the soil running through his hands…suddenly had meant nothing to Two-Zeta-Seven.

They had gone from planet to planet: killing, capturing, pillaging. Doing whatever the voice needed them to do. Until, one day, as Two-Zeta-Seven had been posed to administer a killing stroke with his baton to a salarian that hadn't been courteous enough to die willingly, the voice was suddenly silenced. And Two-Zeta-Seven began, for the first time in a long time, to think for himself again.

It was not a welcomed feeling.

All around him, his fellow troopers had panicked. The voice had been their oxygen; now that it was gone, they were all drowning. Two-Zeta-Seven had suddenly remembered that there had once been a green-eyed woman and a child and a planet. And he had wondered, for the first time, what had happened to them all. Though he still found that he didn't really want to know. All he wanted was the voice and now it was gone.

But there had been a distress signal: an incessant nagging at the base of his skull that was a poor substitute for the richness that the voice had been. The signal had told them to go to Earth and they had obeyed: their team had been deployed on Mars and so it did not matter that Sol's mass relay had been reduced to debris drifting on the edges of the solar system. There had been other teams deployed elsewhere, all across the galaxy, but without the mass relays, they all knew that those other troops were as good as gone.

At the rendezvous point on Earth, he had met Eva Harper for the first time. She was also the first human he had seen up close after the Synthesis: her green circuitry pulsed in the shadow of her cascading black hair, vivid against her milk-white skin. For the first time, he had realized that troopers like himself—those who had once been able to hear the voice—had been passed over in the multiple blessings and curses the Synthesis had provided.

That did not matter much to Two-Zeta-Seven. He had no particular desire for the green circuitry along his skin or for the ability to communicate on a binary level with other organic and synthetic beings. It had only mattered because it was a confirmation of what he had suspected ever since he had regained the ability to think for himself: that he was no longer human and had not been human for a very long time.

He remembered how young Harper had been then: little more than a child, it seemed, but she told them that they would recover the voice, that they would all be whole again. All they needed to do was renounce their Cerberus allegiance and quietly become agents of a newly-formed black ops research division of the Alliance that would be devoted to discovering what exactly had happened during the Synthesis.

"Cerberus isn't just the organization or the people behind it," she confided to them all. "Cerberus is an idea. An idea that can best thrive within the shelter of the Alliance military. I understand that you once fought them as your enemies. But don't forget that Cerberus is all about protecting humanity. And, right now, the Alliance is humanity."

It hadn't really been a choice: Harper did not speak as sweetly as the voice had, but her commands soothed the raw edges of the void that the voice had left behind. There was only a handful of Cerberus forces left now (perhaps a few hundred out of a galaxy-spanning force of thousands), but they would be enough for this.

Trooper Two-Zeta-Seven had been on several operations over the past twenty-seven years since the end of the Reaper War. A part of him knew that he should be an old man by now, but he didn't feel any older than the day at Sanctuary when he had been transformed from a human colonist into a cog in the great Cerberus war machine. Once, he had heard Harper remark dryly to a researcher that troopers seemed to be destined to die violently…or not at all.

But this current stint in this secret Alliance facility had to be the worst assignment he had ever received. He disliked guard duty. It was boring. It gave him time to think. And Two-Zeta-Seven didn't want to be able to think: he wanted the voice back.

The only consolation to being assigned to guard Prisoner #2186 was the knowledge that this prisoner mattered more than all the others: Harper believed he was the key to getting the voice back. But everyone knew that Prisoner #2186 had been here for nearly six years now. And Two-Zeta-Seven only had to look at the lines forming across Harper's pretty face to know that they were no closer to figuring out how to use this prisoner than they had been when they first brought him to the facility.

One of the researchers came by with the meal cart and handed Two-Zeta-Seven the prisoner's meal. It was marked with a blue lid to signal that it was dextro-friendly. Two-Zeta-Seven sighed: he really didn't want to be the one to deliver the meal into the cell. He tried to avoid eye contact with the meal attendant, but the woman shoved the tray into his hands anyhow. Then, he tried to hand it off to Eight-Tau-Eight, but his fellow trooper stared across the hallway, ignoring him.

Resigned to his fate, Two-Zeta-Seven knocked twice on the door to signal that he was entering the cell. Without waiting for an answer—he didn't expect one—he entered.

The thing he disliked most about Prisoner #2186 was the way he stared at him. The other prisoners were meeker. Some, like that asari on the lower floor, were almost friendly: she had been smart enough to figure out that this facility was not intended as a punishment, but was simply a necessity. It was all for the good of humanity. It had always been for the good of humanity.

Prisoner #2186 had never seemed to accept this. Two-Zeta-Seven could feel the stare as he tossed the meal tray onto the bolted-down table next to two bolted-down chairs. Two-Zeta-Seven removed the lid. There was no cutlery, of course—not after what happened a week ago. The researchers had decided to call it The Fork Incident, which they seemed to find funny. All Two-Zeta-Seven knew was that it had resulted in Six-Beta-Six being carried out in a body bag with a fork in his jugular and Prisoner #2186 being drugged and carried back to his cell after making it all the way to the lower level. The farthest he'd ever gotten on an escape attempt. And there had been many—too many—of those over the past six years.

The old turian's stare was cold steel against the back of Two-Zeta-Seven's neck. This prisoner was even uglier than the average turian: one side was torn up by some old wound and the other had a pulsing streak of blue light that blanketed the turian's eye and temple. He knew that Prisoner #2186 had been wearing some kind of visor that had fused into him during the Synthesis: it was why his cell as the only one lined with various heat and radiation blockers. Two-Zeta-Seven had no doubt that this prisoner was a very expensive guest for this Alliance black ops group.

It wasn't like this facility had been intended for torture. It was a comfortable cell with a bed and the table and a GUI interface arranged across a console in the corner, in order to provide entertainment for the prisoner. Granted, this cell was barer than most. At one point, Harper had granted Prisoner #2186 a series of weights and a punching bag, but those had been taken away after the punching bag had been used to pin down two of the guards and one of the dumbbells had almost taken off Harper's pretty little neck before she was able to get in a tranquilizer shot that subdued the turian.

Two-Zeta-Seven tried not to show any kind of haste in his return to the door, but it was difficult not to feel relief when he reached it and rapped twice on its reassuringly solid form. He glanced back at the turian, but the prisoner hadn't made a move towards either the food nor the door. He just continued staring at Two-Zeta-Seven. Two-Zeta-Seven heard a dull thud outside the door. For a moment, the turian's mandibles flicked against the sides of his face.

Two-Zeta-Seven banged on the door again, grunting unappreciatively at Eight-Tau-Eight's slowness. If the voice had been here, this delay would never happen: all the Cerberus troops had been perfectly synchronized, moving as one great organism rather than scattered and directionless like they were now. The turian tilted his head to one side at the delay. Two-Zeta-Seven didn't like that. It made him feel vulnerable. As he knocked again and continued to feel the cold stare at his back, Two-Zeta-Seven realized what exactly was so disturbing about the turian's gaze.

It made Two-Zeta-Seven feel like he was already dead.

Finally, he heard the door slide open. Two-Zeta-Seven stepped through quickly, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure the turian still stood on the other side of the room. He was surprised to see the turian's brow plates rise and the coldness in those blue eyes brightened. Two-Zeta Seven stepped forward, turning towards Eight-Tau-Eight.

"What the hell was that about? You could ha—"

There was a blue flash and Two-Zeta-Seven felt his body suddenly pulled backwards into the cell. His back slammed against the wall and he crumpled to the floor. He could taste the metallic tang of both blood and broken circuits dangling in the back of his throat.

"Damn it," the turian was saying in a voice that seemed a strange mixture of anger and relief. "Why couldn't you have done this years ago?"

A female voice—no, an asari voice—mumbled something in reply that Two-Zeta-Seven couldn't understand through the electricity swimming across his ear drum. He lifted his head and saw that his SMG wasn't lying too far away. He wanted to reach for it…but first he activated the emergency signal on his comm. Then, Two-Zeta-Seven strained towards the gun.

But the turian was suddenly there: Two-Zeta-Seven rolled, but another burst of biotics poured across his body in a burning surge of pain. The SMG slipped out of his hands and into the talons of the turian. The slugs peppered his chest and Two-Zeta-Seven knew that the turian had been right all along: Two-Zeta-Seven had always been dead, nothing more than a future corpse.

And as he died, Two-Zeta-Seven was comforted by the sound of heavy boots pounding down the hallway. Reinforcements had arrived. Prisoner #2186 wasn't leaving. Not this time. Not ever. Harper would use this turian to find the voice again and then…then everything in the galaxy could be set right again.

But Two-Zeta-Seven was surprised that his final thoughts were not of the voice, but of that green-eyed woman he could barely remember. And he felt a strange surge of sadness as the last of his breath left him.

Because he remembered his own name.


	2. A Prodigal Return

**Chapter 2: A Prodigal Return**

_The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_

_The best lack all conviction, while the worst_

_Are full of passionate intensity._

_-"The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats_

Tali's bright eyes shot open as she lay—alone—in her bed. She stared at the ceiling of her bedroom and tried to figure out what had awoken her so suddenly. Then, as she struggled into full consciousness, she heard it: footsteps downstairs. Heavy, armored footsteps.

She pulled herself out of bed, wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. Her soft nightgown dangled around her lilac ankles as she set her feet on the cold floor. This nightgown wasn't exactly her armor of choice for going into a potential battle, but she wasn't sure what other choice she had. Mentally, she ran through a list of to whom the footsteps couldn't belong: Zaar was away on active duty and wouldn't return for another two months. Shala was working her way through medical school on the other side of Rannoch. Zeri, always the adventurous one, was exploring the ruins of Thessia with the current subject of her infatuation, an asari maiden. And Kal—dear Kal, her youngest and sweetest who was so unlike his namesake that Tali thought it a wonderful kind of joke played on her by the galaxy—had embarked on his pilgrimage a week ago, his destination unknown to even himself.

Tali didn't like the house when it was empty. It went completely against the purpose of the house: to be able to provide shelter for the people who mattered to her. Not all of those people had made it through the War, but still…Tali never felt so alone as she had for the past week since Kal's departure. Her youngest. Off on his pilgrimage. She had tried to distract herself by spending her time pouring over datapads, coordinating a recent surge in space traffic, and negotiating with the Board on behalf of the geth. In other words, Tali had been utterly bored and wishing for anything to break the tedium of her current existence.

She silently chastised herself for that now, of course, as unknown assailants stalked through her home. She remembered that there was a human saying, one that had been taught to her by a friend years ago: be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

"Well," Tali muttered to herself as she crouched beside the bed and pulled out the weapon stowed there, "I suppose the best way to deal with unwelcome wishes is to shoot them in the face with a shotgun."

She crept down the stairs. She considered cueing the lights, but figured that the darkness was an advantage in her favor rather than the intruders': this was her house and she knew it intimately. Her hands brushed along the tapestries lining the walls. Once, when she had worn her suit, this entire world would have been closed off from her: the feel of the rich cloth flowing against her skin, the mountain-cooled breeze coming through an opened window downstairs, the roughness of the stairs on her bare feet.

She stepped around the corner of the stairs and into the hearthroom, hefting the shotgun up into her hands. But she didn't pull the trigger. Instead, she stopped and stared: silhouetted against the window was a geth.

Once, a geth in her hearthroom would have caused Tali to fire immediately. Instead, she looked at the way the geth held its head—distinctly and chronically tilted to the right. And she lowered the shotgun.

"Gabriel!" she said, relief flooding her voice. "What are you doing here?"

But the geth buzzed in alarm and Tali whirled around. Two shots rang out from behind her and she stared.

There was a Ceberus trooper standing there. His voice crackled through his helmet, instructing her to drop her weapon and stand down.

Tali hefted the shotgun and sent a bullet into his gut. The soldier roared in pain and raised his own weapon, but then he was suddenly brushed aside by a shimmering blue light: Gabriel's biotics. Tali ran into the hearthroom, pulling herself into cover behind the table. Gabriel ducked down beside her.

"Keelah! What's going on?"

Gabriel whirred at her.

"Gabriel?" she asked, the human-based name still a little strange on her tongue, even after all these years. "Gabriel, please tell me why Cerberus is attacking my house?" She was disturbed by his strange reluctance to explain.

"I…do not know," he said quietly, his single bright eye never leaving the entrance to the hearthroom. "However there are only six troopers. We should have ample forces with which to dispatch them."

Tali laughed, the adrenaline rushing through her body and consuming the fear like a wildfire.

"Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had to fire a weapon?"

"Given your inaccuracy on that last shot, I would estimate a considerable amount of time. Taking into account your"—and Gabriel's mechanical digits suddenly glowed as he biotically lifted another trooper rounding the corner—"personal history, I would assume approximately twenty-seven galactic standard years." He tilted his head towards the trooper floating across the ceiling. "Your assistance, please?"

Tali pointed her gun up towards the ceiling and fired several rounds into the trooper until he landed with an unceremonious thud on the other side of the hearthroom.

"Your encouragement is very much appreciated," Tali said sarcastically, leaping out from the behind the table. "Now, do you know where the rest of them are?"

Her own question was answered when three of them rounded the corner at once, including a Centurion. Tali dove back behind the corner formed by the stairs, cueing up her omnitool. The Centurion's shields died with an electric buzz and he staggered backwards. Gabriel threw a stasis bubble around the trio and Tali emptied rounds into the troopers until they crumbled onto the ground.

Tali hadn't been joking: it had been years since she'd fought like this. But it almost frightened her how easy it was to return to the rhythm of battle. The shotgun felt heavier in her arms than it ever had when she was younger. And today, for the first time, she was fighting without her suit…and she felt naked without it. Well, she wasn't wearing anything more than her nightgown, so she practically was.

For the first time, the architecture of her house suddenly did not seem so comforting as it once did: the traditional quarian design meant that there were a lot of tight corners and many tapestries to hide behind. There were a million places for that last trooper to be. She peered around the stairs and into the main room. Gabriel paced quietly up behind her, following her gaze. There, over by the couch: a shimmer, nothing more than a few distorted light waves.

Tali pointed, silently. Gabriel nodded. Then, he threw out a stasis bubble that neatly trapped the Phantom in its pulsing blue light. Tali smirked. And then tightened the trigger on her shotgun. Instead of throwing rounds into the frozen Phantom, however, her shotgun beeped irritably.

"I'm out," Tali cursed, tossing the weapon aside. She couldn't believe how stupid she was. She'd only kept the shotgun as a precaution. She hadn't thought to actually store heat sinks on the premises. This was her own house, after all.

Gabriel dropped to the bodies of the troopers littering the floor, looking for a replacement heat sink. But the stasis bubble had already fallen away. Tali saw the Phantom swiftly shake her head, throwing off the last of the biotics before she moved across the room unnaturally fast, sword drawn out.

Tali pulled up her omnitool, looking for something, anything that would help. She tried to dodge behind a corner of the wall, but the Phantom was upon her. Gabriel whirred in alarm, his bright eye illuminating the Phantom's impassive helmet as she raised her sword.

Then, the helmet shattered as a bullet tore through it, scattering the Phantom's cybernetic skull into a mass of circuitry and blood. Without even a scream, she slumped to the floor, sword clattering beside her. Tali turned around to stare at Gabriel, but he was still weaponless and the shot hadn't come from him. His eye was now turned towards the top of the stairs. A figure stood there, lowering a massive rifle away from its face. Tali gasped, bringing her palms to her gaping mouth.

For a moment, she really thought it was him. It was the casual way the rifle was lowered, almost as if the spectacular shot had been nothing.

But Tali was a rational quarian. "The most rational quarian" if her recent biographer was to be believed. And after only a heartbeat, she realized how impossible that would be: he was dead and had been dead for six years now.

But, keelah, she looked more turian than human. It didn't help that, as the figure shifted, the moonlight captured the blue facial markings covering her cheeks and jawline. She was sixteen now: tall and lanky, long arms and legs muscled like someone who favored agility over brute strength. She wore a cheap set of armor that barely glinted in the moonlight. And, when Adrienna Vakarian stowed the Mantis rifle on her shoulders and made her way down the stairs towards her, Tali could see that there was definitely something troubled in her green-flecked brown eyes.

Adrienna stood there awkwardly for a moment.

"I...I came in from the roof. We thought it would be better if we—"

Tali pulled her into an embrace.

"Keelah," she breathed, suddenly aware of how far up she had to reach to stroke the back of Adrienna's head, a gesture that hadn't been so difficult years ago when she and Tiersa had stepped off that ship. She'd gotten tall: unusually tall for a human female.

Adrienna smiled shyly.

"Are you okay?" asked Tali, pulling her away to shoulder length so she could look her over.

Adrienna had cut her black hair short—again, Tali noted ruefully—and it stuck up from her head in short, dark spikes. There was a number of scars that Tali knew hadn't been there when Adrienna had left, including one jagged line that ran almost the length of her forehead. Tali frowned in consternation. Garrus had relied on her to protect them. And she knew that she had failed.

But Adrienna must have seen some trace of Tali's guilt in her bright eyes, because she suddenly pulled herself back into the quarian's arms.

"I'm so sorry," she muttered against Tali's shoulder, suddenly young again. "I shouldn't have left. I just…I just needed to go somewhere else. I couldn't stay here. I never meant to worry you. You took care of us for all those years and I..." She raised her head to look at Tali. "It…It wasn't fair and I'm sorry."

Tali hadn't seen Adrienna for two years, not since she had disappeared from the house in the middle of the night, leaving nothing but a datapad saying that she was fine and would return soon. Tali hadn't really expected Adrienna to get very far. After all, Adrienna had been only a human teenager and Tali had been the Admiral charged with geth-quarian relations: a responsibility that had involved coordinating most of the FTL traffic for the past two decades. Tali hadn't believed that Adrienna would have been able to get off-world without her authorization, so she hadn't bothered checking any of the outbound ships. Later, after an extensive search of Rannoch proved fruitless, Tali had been forced to conclude that wasn't the case. Now, looking at Gabriel standing awkwardly in the corner, Tali suddenly had an idea of how Adrienna had been able to leave Rannoch undetected.

"Where did you go? And…" Tali said slyly, looking at Gabriel, "…how exactly did you leave?"

Gabriel buzzed, a geth equivalent to clearing his throat.

"I…may have assisted in Adrienna Vakarian's departure," he said quietly, his light shining everywhere except for Tali's bright gaze. "She requested my assistance and I may have had…difficulty finding it in my programming to answer in the negative."

Tali knew that she shouldn't have been surprised. Gabriel had been the one to rescue the girls from Earth six years ago. That had been before the latest FTL breakthrough, so Gabriel had spent nearly two years aboard that ship with them. Tiersa and Adrienna had spent as much time on that ship as they had living in Tali's home on Rannoch. And being one of the first geth with an eezo-powered processor meant that he was particularly popular with the ships. He could have easily convinced one to spirit Adrienna off-world.

"Please, don't blame Gabriel," Adrienna said. "He just wanted to help. Really. Like he helped tonight, bringing me back. If I'd known those Alliance troops were following…I'm sorry, Tali. I'm really sorry."

"Wait…" Tali said, realizing what the girl had just said. "Alliance?"

Adrienna's brow furrowed.

"Well, yeah. They're human, aren't they? So aren't they Alliance?"

Tali shook her head and crouched down next to one of the troopers, pulling off its helmet.

"Does this look human to you? These are Cerberus troopers."

Adrienna leaned over at the mess of tissue that had been revealed underneath the helmet. The basics were there: two eyes, a nose, a mouth. But the rest of the face was so distorted with electronics and gadgetry that the effect was monstrous. Tali hadn't intended to terrorize the girl, but Adrienne just nodded and stepped back, disgusted but unfazed.

"They told me they were Alliance," she muttered, turning away. "The first time they tried to take me in. On Tuchanka."

"Tuchanka?"

And, for the first time, Adrienna grinned. And then she pointed to the scar across her forehead.

"Yeah. Urdnot Wrex says 'hello' by the way. Says that I should try and keep you out of trouble, since you always seem to run into it."

"Actually," said Tali dryly, "trouble seems to have a way of finding me. Trouble has a way of appearing in my house in the middle of the night without so much as a message for two years."

And she gave Adrienna a look. Adrienna looked sheepish again.

"You really have a way of milking the guilt thing, don't you?" she said.

Tali knew that she should have laughed at that—it was funny. But the way Adrienna said it made it sound like something Garrus would say and that just made Tali feel suddenly sad. And old. All of her friends had left this galaxy before she had.

"Tali?" Adrienna asked. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Tali said carefully. "I'm fine."

"One of us should make sure the perimeter is clear," Gabriel whirred. "Given the current situation, I volunteer this platform."

"Yes, yes, go ahead," Tali said.

Gabriel seemed relieved at being allowed to leave the room. It still amused Tali to think of how far the geth had progressed emotionally since the Synthesis. The Reaper code Legion had uploaded had allowed the geth programs to begin to think of themselves as individuals—and had the side-effect of giving the geth an understanding of Reaper FTL technology, allowing the joint quarian-geth flotilla to dominate space travel for the past two decades. But, just as it caused synthetic characteristics to be adopted by each organic race, the Synthesis event had attributed organic characteristics to the geth: the primary one being that the programs were suddenly no longer able to transfer between platforms and were, effectively, trapped in their own bodies. Because most of the geth programs had been uploaded to their ships at the time, the ships were considered by the geth to be the most intelligent of their species and, therefore, the logical leaders. Mobile platforms like Gabriel were the most comfortable taking orders…and not in the middle of a human and a quarian who hadn't seen each other in two years and clearly had many things to discuss.

"Come on," Tali said, sighing. "Let's sit down."

But Adrienna shook her head.

"I…I don't really have time to stay. I came back because I need your help."

"Oh?" asked Tali.

"I need a ship."

"Don't you have Gabriel's help?"

"Gabriel isn't a ship. And I need more than just a space between cargo crates on a supply run from Rannoch to Tuchanka. I need a ship that will take me to…Earth."

Adrienna looked away as she spoke the last word. And Tali knew why: Earth had been Adrienna's home, the only home she had known for the first ten years of her life. But it was also where her father had died: gunned down by mercenaries as he tried to protect her and Tiersa.

"Why Earth?" Tali said softly.

"Because these troopers aren't really after me. They told me so. They want Tiersa."

Tali bit her lower lip. This was not good.

"But why? How do they even know she exists?" Tali shook her head. "Keelah, why does Cerberus even exist? They were supposed to be dead and gone."

"I…I don't know. But they wanted to try and capture me as a way to lure Tiersa out. I don't even know how they found me on Tuchanka. I mean, it was kinda stupid of them," Tiersa said, grinning. "It's not like Urdnot Wrex was just going to step aside and let them take me. But, Tali, I need to get to Tiersa before they find her. And everyone knows that quarians still have the fastest ships in the galaxy."

"The FTL drives are at over 300 lightyears now," Tali acknowledged, always proud of her people's accomplishments. "That's still thanks to the geth, of course."

"So? Will you do it?"

Tali sighed, looking around her beautiful house. There were holes in some of the tapestries—probably from her own shotgun. And there was the blood splatters from the various bodies scattered around. For so many years this house had been her shelter, her sanctuary from the madness of the galaxy.

No more.

"Alright," she said quietly and she could see the relief flood into Adrienna's features. "I'll get you a ship. I'm sure that one or two vessels will be sympathetic. And Gabriel's very popular with them, so having him along certainly won't hurt in trying to gain their permission."

Adrienna threw her arms around Tali.

"Thank you," she breathed.

Tali smiled.

"Come on. You never thought I could say 'no' to you, did you?" she teased. "Now, I understand that time is short, but I just need to get a few things ready before we leave."

Adrienna's eyes narrowed.

"We?"

Tali was already walking back up the stairs.

"Of course. You didn't really think I'd let you do this on your own, did you?"


	3. Preparations and Farewells

**Chapter 3: Preparations and Farewells **

Zaar was not impressed with Tali's decision.

"Tali," he grumbled through the vid comm, "you're an admiral. If Adrienna is going to insist on doing this herself, find someone else to accompany her. You don't need to do this."

"Gabriel's coming too."

Zaar frowned. Tali already knew that Zaar thought Gabriel was young and impulsive—a bizarre notion to apply to a geth, yet true of Gabriel nonetheless. But Tali had a considerable amount of empathy for those particular characteristics. She had been young and impulsive once too…and maybe the latter description still applied, given what she was trying to do at the moment.

Zaar thought that being one of the first geth to be outfitted with an eezo core processor had gone straight to Gabriel's head. Although it allowed him to be among the first geth to utilize biotics, the extra amount of energy required to power the processor meant that Gabriel's systems would burn out well before any of the non-eezo geth. No one knew how long that would take because no one yet knew what a geth's natural lifespan would be either. The geth had already determined that new bodies could be grown and new programs created by transferring select amounts of information between ships—a mutated approximation of reproduction—but the process was relatively slow. The picture of what long-term geth population statistics would look like had yet to become clear. There were theories, of course. Always theories.

"Besides, Zaar, I'm retired now," Tali continued, ignoring the issue of Gabriel for now.

"Exactly."

Now it was Tali's turn to frown.

"You can't expect me to just sit around at home, can you? I miss the kids."

"And the solution to that is to visit Shala. Or try to use some of your motherly wiles to get Zeri to stay on the homeworld for more than a week at a time. That doesn't mean you have to go off on some dangerous mission halfway across the galaxy."

Tali looked away. She loved Zaar. She always had and always will, ever since he had taken her hand into his own as they both stood watching the ceremonial engraving of Kal'Reegar's name on a memorial slate. Tali had attended countless memorial services in the days following the flotilla's departure from Earth. She had watched innumerable memorial slates being carved, had been surrounded by crowds of quarians weeping beneath their masks, had seen the rosters of casualties in the Admiralty Board meetings, had understood that each one meant another quarian would never return to the homeworld except in spirit. But Reegar's ceremony had finally been the one to break her. As the last letters of his name and rank were burned into the memorial slate, Tali had felt the emotional barrier she had formed around herself suddenly give way, and all the grief at everything the Reapers had done was let loose from her body in a torrent of sobs. Remembering Reegar meant remembering everyone she had lost who, like the marine, had fought until the end. Her father. Mordin. Thane. Miranda. Javik. Legion. Shepard.

And Zaar, the only surviving member of Reeger's squad, had come up beside her, squeezing her hand gently in his own. They had been complete strangers to each other then, but everything about him had suddenly been familiar: their mutual survivor's guilt reflecting in each other's eyes through their face masks.

With Zaar, Tali had begun to build herself a life. Shala and Zeri had been born in clean rooms on the flotilla on the journey home to Rannoch. But Kal had been born under the roof of this house after Tali and Zaar had built it on Rannoch's rocky bluffs in the exact spot where she had told Shepard she would. And, with Zaar, Tali had been able to remember that war wasn't just about loss. Without the sacrifices, she wouldn't have had her three beautiful children. She wouldn't have had her house. She wouldn't have had Zaar. She had lost so much. But those losses meant something. They meant Zaar returning to her embrace after every peacetime patrol. They meant a galaxy where Shala's confident stride, Zeri's shining eyes, and Kal's shy smile could exist without fear that Tali would never see them again whenever they stepped out the front door.

And, today, honoring those sacrifices meant helping the daughters of her old friends.

"Zaar," she said, trying again to make him understand. "I can't make this an official operation. Cerberus is masquerading under the Alliance's name. They might know who Tiersa's parents are. And they managed to track Adrienna even when I couldn't. There's just too much here that doesn't make any sense yet."

"Fine, but—"

"—This is about Adrienna and Tiersa," Tali continued. "This is about owing those people who got me through the War. Liara. Garrus. And…Shepard. All that's left of them is contained within these two girls. Please, Zaar. I have to do this."

Zaar looked away, running a hand through his cropped hair.

"Just…just be careful."

Tali nodded, silently promising herself that, for Zaar's sake, she would be.

"I don't think you'll be able to contact me once we leave Rannoch," she added, feeling like this was the real blow. "I don't want anything to get traced back to you. I'll check in when I can."

"Understood," said Zaar, nodding. He was all soldier again for a moment, but then something on his face shifted and that mask fell away. "I love you."

"I love you too," she said, smiling sadly. "And I will be careful."

Tali shut off the vid comm before he could see the tears glistening in her eyes. But she was determined not to change her mind. She wiped away the purple streaks left by the tears and started making the appropriate preparations, including a little surprise for Cerberus if they chose to visit the house again.

Once programming security measures like these would have required an omnitool and actual contact with an interface. Now, with the binary abilities the Synthesis had given all quarians, Tali needed to do nothing more than close her eyes and run her fingers gently along the console, speaking to the house's electronic systems with an ease that still astounded her, even after all these years. Before the Synthesis, programming had felt like trying to communicate to machines with nothing but primitive hand gestures. Now, it was more like singing epic poetry: levels of language and understanding opened up to her now that Tali hadn't even known existed back then, even though she'd been an accomplished engineer. She knew that many people were concerned with the changes that the Synthesis had wrought in all species. Tali understood that, but she also appreciated how far quarian society had progressed with these new advancements.

Adrienna entered the bedroom. She sank down on the bed with a sigh, like she had used to do when she was significantly smaller and wanted to talk to Tali about something serious.

"I considered sneaking out while you were on the comm with Zaar, you know," Adrienna said with no introduction.

"Oh?" said Tali, amused and looking up from her work. "Why didn't you?"

Adrienna didn't answer the question immediately, instead looking down at her feet. Tali could remember when she had been small enough that the little human's feet would dangle off the edge of the bed without touching the ground. Tali waited for Adrienna to answer her question and, finally, the girl looked up and met Tali's gaze.

"Do you have any idea how upset Dad would have been if I let something happen to you?" Adrienna said quietly. "If I took off and you came after me yourself and…and something happened?"

Tali laughed, even though Adrienna furrowed her brow at that.

"I can assure you," Tali said, "that goes double for me. Imagine what he'd do to me if something happens to you."

"Yeah…I guess…but…" Adrienna sighed. "You don't have to come with me to Earth. I can do this. And you've got so much here. Zaar. And your kids. You should be here for them."

Tali fixed her with a blazing stare.

"Adrienna, as far as I'm concerned, you and Tiersa count as my kids too."

Adrienna looked away, but Tali could tell that she was touched.

"Still, I dunno…"

There was something that the human wasn't saying, Tali realized.

"Adrienna," Tali said suddenly, shutting down her console entirely, "why did you leave?"

Adrienna continued refusing to meet Tali's gaze. It was hard to believe that this was the same young human who, only hours earlier, had shot off a Phantom's head with not even a glimmer of hesitation. There was no trace of that self-confidence now as Adrienna struggled to answer Tali's question. She opened her mouth, shook her head, and then cleared her throat.

"I found out. About Tiersa's…umm…father."

"…her father...?"

And then Tali understood. Shepard.

"Oh."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"I mean," Adrienna continued, "there had been…conversations between Tiersa and Dad. Especially when she first started living with us. But I didn't realize what they meant. Not really. And then, one day, I was just thinking things over and I figured it out. I asked her about it and Tiersa didn't deny it or anything…but, after that, I just needed some time away. Some time to think about…about who I was and who she was and…everything." She sighed. "And maybe I was a little hurt that both she and Dad had kept a secret that big from me for so long. And I didn't really blame Tiersa, but…but I'm worried that she may have taken it that way."

Tali nodded, understanding now after all these years why the relationship between the girls had dissolved overnight two years ago without either of them giving her any explanation. Adrienna, only fourteen, had disappeared in the middle of the night leaving only a datapad. And Tiersa…

"Tiersa didn't stay for long after you left," Tali admitted. "I remember asking her if she was going after you, but she told me she wasn't. That she was going back to Earth to become…to become her mother."

Tali shivered at recalling the memory. She had suspected that something had gone on between Adrienna and Tiersa that had spurred Adrienna's departure, but she had been absolutely sure in that moment when Tiersa announced that she, too, would be leaving Rannoch. The two girls had been practically sisters: one asari, one human. Yet the coldness in Tiersa's eyes as she had announced her return to Earth had startled Tali. In that moment, Tiersa had reminded Tali not of Liara and not of Shepard, but instead of Garrus. The way he had been when he had talked about Omega. The way he had been when they had returned to Earth after repairing the Normandy only to discover that Shepard was gone.

And Tali had known that, once Tiersa took her mother's place as the Shadow Broker, the young asari was planning on using her power over secrets and intrigues to do some serious damage to whomever she could. The only other thing Tali had managed to pull out of Tiersa before she left was a grudging, mumbled comment as she boarded the ship to Earth.

"It doesn't make any sense, Tali," Tiersa had mumbled. "How would those mercs find Garrus? After all these years? And my mother was also killed by old enemies that just seemed to show up out of nowhere. It's just too coincidental. There's something missing here. Something that I need to find out. And it's better if Adrienna just stays wherever she's gone. I need her out of the way. I need her out of danger to do what I'm going to do."

Tali had let her go, but only because she had thought they would stay in contact, that she'd be able to temper the young asari's rage from a distance. But after the ship touched down on Earth—less than six months after leaving Rannoch with the latest FTL drives—and deposited Tiersa T'Soni back onto Earth's soil, all contact had ceased. And Tali had spent sleepless nights staring up at her ceiling and wondering how she could have failed her dead friends so horribly by losing track of not just one, but both of their children in the wilds of the galaxy.

Until, months later, Tali had received a single photo from an untraceable address: a young asari, smiling shyly and standing in front of an ocean as the waves lapped up against her blue ankles.

After that, every few months, Tali would receive a photo. Tiersa hadn't changed as much as Adrienna: her asari genetics meant that her aging process had slowed down and she remained saddled with the lankiness of adolescence. Tali was observant enough to notice the darkness and the strain growing in Tiersa's blue eyes though, and she couldn't help but continue to worry about what the young asari was up to on Earth.

Tali pulled up the latest file Tiersa had sent her: Tiersa was barely smiling this time and the background was nothing but white. Tali showed the photo to Adrienna and the sight of her asari sister brought a rare smile to her lips. The crinkling of her soft human cheeks distorted the blue turian facial markings in a way that wouldn't have been possible on an actual turian.

"I'm glad that she looks okay. When did you get this?"

"A week ago."

Adrienna nodded.

"That's well after the Alliance—I mean, Cerberus—found me on Tuchanka. That was almost six months ago now. So that's good, I guess. They haven't found her yet. Do you know where she is? Can you contact her?"

"All I get are these encoded photographs every month or so," Tali said, shaking her head. "I've tried tracing the signal, but all I can really tell for certain is that they do come from Earth. Tiersa clearly doesn't want to be contacted by me….though at least she sends me these to let me know that she's still okay, which is more than some…"

Tali glared at Adrienna.

"I know, I know," Adrienna said. "Haven't I apologized enough already?"

"Maybe…" Tali said, looking at the human and frowning a little. "Adrienna, why Tuchanka? What exactly did you do there?"

Adrienna got that grin again—the one that had broken across her face the first time the planet had come up in conversation.

"Well, I thought about going to Palaven, but Gabriel pointed out that the turians would be a little offended by the tattoos. And I figured Auntie Sol's would be the first place you'd check. So I thought I'd try Tuchanka instead."

"Let me guess," Tali said dryly, "the krogan thought the tattoos were hilarious."

"Yeah," said Adrienna. "When they found me stowed away among the supplies, they took me to Urdnot Wrex because they thought he'd get a laugh out of seeing my face." Adrienna tried to lower her voice by about four octaves to impersonate a krogan's rumbling drawl. "'You've got a quad, little human, insulting the Hierarchy like that. Wrex is gonna want to see this.'"

Tali laughed and Adrienna grinned shyly.

"Urdnot Wrex…He was my hero, you know," Adrienna continued. "Growing up on Earth. I worked him up to be the most powerful warrior in the galaxy. I was pretty sure nothing could stop him."

"I remember hearing about that," Tali nodded.

"Well, I was wrong. Turns out a little human wearing the facial tattoos of his only turian friend _will _stop Urdnot Wrex in his tracks. He let me stick around, despite some of the misgivings of the other krogan. But he had Grunt to back him up, so it's not like any of the other krogan even dared to question his decision to let me stay in the new Capital. And Dad may have taught me how to shoot…" She gestured to the scar across her forehead, "…but Urdnot Wrex taught me how to fight. And when those Cerberus troops dropped in on the city…Let's just say that Grunt was kind enough to leave a few troops for me and I was able to get in some target practise for the first time since…since Dad died."

The human looked immensely proud of herself, her brown eyes glowing.

Tali tried to look impressed because she knew it would mean something to Adrienna, but she couldn't help but feel some misgivings towards Wrex. Was teaching a human girl brutal krogan fighting techniques really necessary? She supposed Garrus had started it with the rooftop sniper training, which was one of many of Garrus's parenting decisions Tali hadn't agreed with…not that Garrus had ever asked her for her opinion…

Still, Tali wholeheartedly wished that when the krogan had discovered Adrienna stowed away on that ship, Wrex had just stuck Adrienna on the next ship leaving for Rannoch. This girl had seen enough bloodshed for one lifetime. Adrienna was still a child and she deserved some peace—something, Tali acknowledged, was probably difficult for a krogan to understand. Yet Tali was grateful that Adrienna had ended up somewhere safe in her self-induced pilgrimage. Well, relatively safe.

But Tali could see the pride burning in the human's eyes and she had no desire to smother that out with her disappointment in Wrex. So she forced smile and then turned away, making the last adjustments to the house's new security system and sending out secured deactivation codes to Zaar and the kids.

"Come on," Tali said, "I think I'm ready to go. Are you?"

"Absolutely," said Adrienna, nodding solemnly. "Do we have a ship?"

And Tali smiled.

"Yes. And I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."


	4. Starbound Once More

**A/N:**

FYI, I won't be posting a chapter on Monday (it's a holiday here!). But I'll try to get one up on Tuesday. Enjoy! :-)

* * *

**Chapter 4: Starbound Once More**

The three of them made for an unlikely trio as they walked up to the docking bay. When the Synthesis occurred, the quarians' suits had merged with their bodies, leaving their skin permanently etched with the patterns of the cloth. Tali's lavender skin was covered with swirling patterns that echoed the motions of her wavy dark hair. But a few strands of grey were sneaking into her hair and Tali remembered that she had been a much younger quarian the last time she had boarded a ship.

Today, for the journey, she was wearing a suit that approximated the one she had spent the first few decades of her life imprisoned within. Although not completely necessary anymore (quarians did still catch mild infections when they visited a new planet), the enviro suits were often still used when travelling off-world because they did command a certain diplomatic power. The other races expected quarians to be in suits and negotiations often went easier when the quarians were wearing them. Still, Tali wasn't entirely adhering to tradition since she wasn't wearing a face mask. She had sworn, when she had stepped onto Rannoch's soil after their return from Earth, never to wear one again and nothing, not even the threat of a sore throat when they reached Earth, could convince her to don one again.

Tali had managed to track down decent human armor for Adrienna before they departed: some war trophy a quarian marine had brought back with him from Earth and was now trying to sell. It did date from the Reaper War and was nothing more than standard Alliance issue, but it was still better than the cheap stuff Wrex had managed to scrounge up for her on Tuchanka. Once they got to Earth, one of their first tasks would be to find decent human armor. Still, Tali knew that Adrienna must easily look much older than her sixteen years. Not only was she remarkably tall for a human female, but her blue facial tattoos and the impressive Mantis prototype folded against her shoulder—like a single, furled wing—would make for an intimidating sight if they encountered any trouble.

And then there was Gabriel. Each of his plates had once been metal, but the Synthesis had imbued geth plating with organic properties so that, rather than being a flat white, the geth's skin shone like the underneath of a shell. Since the weight would only serve to further strain systems already overclocked by his biotics, Gabriel carried no weapons save for a pistol on his hip. He followed along behind, his head always tilted to the right. Tali had offered to fix that odd tic for him shortly after they had first met, when Gabriel was working as a geth liaison for the rebuilding effort. But Gabriel had simply shook his head, explaining to her that he "appreciated such imperfections as they serve as a reminder of our newly-integrated organic system components."

As Tali had hoped, Adrienna's face lit up as soon as she spotted the ship they were approaching at the spaceport. It was, of course, the same ship as the one that had carried her and Tiersa away from Earth and to Rannoch six years ago.

The ship had no name, for geth ships needed none: instead referring to each other through a unique code of characteristics. Unlike the ships, the mobile platforms, like Gabriel, had chosen to adopt names both because they felt it eased interactions with other races and because they felt it honored Legion's choice to go by a human name—albeit one gifted to him by EDI, another AI. Following that tradition, the geth had a tendency to choose names from human mythologies, although Tali had encountered more than a few units that had chosen instead to pick quarian names—a gesture which had always bothered Tali a little. Why would a unit choose such an act of reverence for their creators, when the quarians had done nothing but persecute the geth until recent history? Tali wondered, not for the first time, if some of the residual programming "to serve" the quarians still influenced the actions of the geth, especially in the mobile units who had less programs (and therefore less intelligence) than the ships.

No, this ship had no name, but those who travelled within her called her Little Sister, for she was one of the smaller scout vessels manufactured to the geth just prior to the War, a ship built for speed and stealth rather than firepower. She reminded Tali of a geth answer to the Normandy in some ways, although most of this ship's journeys consisted of transporting cargo and diplomats on long treks from homeworld to homeworld, instead of the Normandy's erratic starjumping from system to system and quest to quest.

Adrienna rushed forward and immediately lay her hand against the ship's skin: green sparks danced between her fingers and the ship as they networked, human and ship greeting each other with binary code.

"Thank you Tali," Adrienna said after she had disengaged. "I feel…I feel like maybe we can do this now."

"You had doubts?" Tali teased.

Adrienna smiled.

"Of course not. Never. Is Jona here too?"

Tali nodded, smiling as the ship obligingly opened its doors and allowed Adrienna to enter. She exchanged a look with Gabriel. Neither of them had the heart to tell Adrienna the truth: that Little Sister had been the only ship with any real sympathy for their cause, mostly out of an affection for the young human who had spent two years nestled within its hull. Now that they were the leaders of their people, the geth ships could be as fickle as the politicians of any other race. Still, despite Tali not anticipating a particularly long journey, she knew that it would comfort Adrienna to have a familiar ship carrying them across the galaxy.

Gabriel followed Adrienna into the hatch, but Tali paused for a moment on the threshold to look around at Rannoch. She hoped she would see it again. Despite being the central organizing force behind all ships coming and leaving Rannoch for nearly two decades, Tali had not set foot in space since the quarians had arrived home. She had felt like she had three centuries worth of appreciation for the homeworld to make up for. She had felt like, now that she knew what it was like to have a home, there was no reason to ever leave. Zaar, Shala, Kal, and especially Zeri had all taken advantage of the geths' exceptional FTL tech to go to other planets, but Tali had been content to manage everything with her feet solidly planted on Rannoch's soil.

Now, for the first time in years, she was starbound again. It was a strange feeling, but not altogether unpleasant. She bent down and pressed her hand into the dirt at her feet for what she hoped would not be the last time. Then, with a small smile, she stepped onto the ship.

She found Adrienna conversing with Jona'Nara. Jona was one of the two-worlders: those quarian engineers who had been experimenting with importing geth into their suits when the Synthesis had occurred. As a result, both geth programming and a quarian mind shared the same body. It didn't take long for the quarians and geth to realize that the two-worlders made excellent navigators. Without their guidance, the Reaper advancements for the FTL systems would have been all but useless. Two-worlders provided that vital service for the ships they served and most never left the consoles they resided within, let alone the ships to which they had been linked.

Jona was no exception: he was leaning back comfortably amongst a nest of wires and links that ran into his body through the various neural links that had been surgically grafted onto his body. The light pouring from his eyes sometimes seemed brighter than it should in the face of a quarian. Tali had never seen a two-worlder actually blink. It made her uncomfortable, watching the independence that these quarian-geth hybrids had sacrificed for their peoples, but all had been willing to serve. It was an honoured position.

"We have been dancing among the stars," Jona was intoning to Adrienna. "We have seen this Tuchanka. It is an old world that has been born again into infancy. We could feel the children brushing by our mother's skin as they moved past us. It was beautiful."

"Yes," said Adrienna, nodding. "There are so many little krogan now. It's hard to imagine what it would have been like before the genophage. Their entire society seems to revolve around taking care of the little ones. And raising them to be strong."

"The ship carries little ones within her. She is our mother and we are her children. She will carry you safely to Earth, Adrienna Vakarian. She will protect you from the terrors of space and set you down into the dirt, where you can be strong. But our place is here, among the stars. We must be the eyes and the—"

"Jona," Tali interrupted gently, knowing that the navigator could go on like this for a long time. "I think we're ready to depart. You understand that we're taking…that new route to Earth?"

Adrienna looked at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Space is beautiful," said Jona, his voice shaking as the engines of the ship geared up. "But space is darkness. And sometimes we need the light to guide us."

Adrienna looked at Tali again, but Tali only smiled mysteriously.

"Come on. We should let Jona and the ship do their work."

They both made their way to the back of the ship, strapping themselves in beside Gabriel. Tali made sure that Adrienna was sitting next to the small port window. She wanted the human to see this.

The ship's engines were at their maximum now. There was an abrupt shudder as it lifted off from Rannoch, bucking off the last constraints off gravity. Out the window beside Adrienna, Tali could see the surface of her beloved planet far below. And even the vague outline of her house on one of the bluffs. She felt her eyes start to tear, but promised herself fiercely that she would soon see it all again.

The blackness of space was soon around them and Adrienna leaned back, preparing to settle in for a long journey. Tali, now grinning and completely unable to contain her excitement, touched her briefly on the shoulder.

"Look," she said simply, pointing out the window.

Adrienna's brow furrowed as she looked out. There was nothing but space and stars. Then, the ship banked around the planet and Tali couldn't help but smile at the gasp that escaped from the young human's lips.

A mass relay rolled into view.

"…how…?" gasped Adrienna, her brown eyes reflecting the bright core of the relay as she stared it through the window.

Adrienna had never seen a mass relay before. They had all been destroyed in the Synthesis explosion years before she had been born. But Tali could instantly see the differences between this new relay and the ancient ones the galaxy had relied on previously. The metal casing on the arms wasn't quite so smooth as the ancient ones, making the lines of the relay less smooth and more angular. Still, after so many years without one in the galaxy, the relay was a welcomed sight. Tali couldn't help but feel her chest swell with a mixture of pride for her peoples' accomplishment: they had built the galaxy's first link in a new relay network.

"It goes to Sur'kesh," Tali explained to Adrienna, seeing the look in her eyes. "A joint quarian-geth-salarian effort that is currently a secret from the rest of the galaxy. The Board is expecting to send out official announcements next week, since it's not like we could keep this a secret for much longer, but it's been operating for over two months now with no incidents."

"We'll be to Earth so quickly," Adrienna said softly. And Tali could tell that her emotions were mixed at the thought, torn between the urgency to save her sister and the reluctance to set foot on the planet where her father had died. "We'll just need the FTL drive from Sur'kesh to Earth, right? That'll take us there in less than a month."

Tali nodded and then fell silent as the ship approached the relay. The rings swung around rapidly and, for a heartbeat, Tali felt like they would surely be hit. It had been so long since the galaxy had seen a working mass relay and just as long since Tali herself had experienced a jump that she'd forgotten the sweetness of that particular sensation: the terror as the rings swung within metres of the cockpit windows until the ship was suddenly embraced by a beam stretching out from the orb at the center of the relay. Without the audio dampers in her helmet, the sound generated by the mass effect field reverberated painfully in Tali's ears. The sound was shortly followed by that familiar electrostatic shiver down the back of her spine as they raced closer and closer towards the end of the relay.

And they fell into the light.


	5. Sky to Sea

**Chapter 5: Sky to Sea**

"This place has barely changed," Adrienna muttered as they departed from the ship.

It had taken them a month to reach Earth. Adrienna and Gabriel had been more used to the boredom of space travel than Tali at this point in her life. The journey made Tali remember why, in the early days, Shepard would occasionally drop the Mako down onto a planet to clear out a pirate base or two, just to break up the monotony. Now, though, they had finally arrived on Earth. The ship had landed at the same secret docking bay as the one that Adrienna and Tiersa had departed from with Gabriel six years ago. Traffic around Earth was strictly controlled, but Tali had managed to use some old diplomatic codes to permit them safe passage and, fortunately, the controller on the other end didn't raise any red flags about their apparent destination in the middle of the mountains where, supposedly, there weren't any space ports to accommodate a vessel of their size.

Tali laid a gloved hand on Adrienna's shoulder as they both stopped on the threshold of the port, looking around at the endless trees that stretched around them. Tali breathed in Earth's atmosphere unfiltered for the first time. There was a tang—a depth—to the atmosphere here that Rannoch did not seem to possess. She could already feel a tickle in the back of her throat. But Tali expected to suffer nothing more than perhaps a bit of stuffiness and a slight fever as her enhanced immune system adjusted to Earth's particular brand of germs. It was nothing compared to the agonizing death that would have resulted for any quarian caught without a suit prior to the Synthesis.

There was nothing but trees for as far as her eyes could see. She imagined that Adrienna was right, that this place had changed very little since Adrienna and Tiersa had departed with Gabriel years ago. But the geth seemed to think otherwise. He walked up behind them, flicking his light over the landscape.

"Since this unit has last taken data from this location the average tree growth is approximately twelve-percent. Additionally, several points of this docking bay structure have been significantly aged, likely from various weather and seasonal factors. I suggest, Creator Tali, that if this docking bay is to be re-activated into regular use, several repairs should be made."

Tali chuckled.

"My, aren't you a sentimental little geth?"

Gabriel flicked the flaps above his eye at her.

"As good-natured as your apparent teasing may be, Creator Tali, I do not appreciate being patronized because of my species. This unit was stationed at this docking platform for several years. I…was informed that it was decommissioned, but seeing it in such disrepair runs counter to the efforts that this platform put into maintaining it."

As much time as she had spent with the geth as an admiral, Tali was still taken off guard by moments like these. Legion would have simply whirred and told her "No data available" upon any further investigation into any of its actions that seemed based on more than cold machine logic. Gabriel was maybe one of the more open geth Tali had met, but it still astounded her that the geth could even feel things like a nostalgic and emotional attachment to a docking port. As soon as she thought it, Tali chided herself for thinking such racist thoughts…but it was true nonetheless. Maybe the geth had always been capable of such emotions, but in the years since they had united with the quarians, there had certainly been a cultural shift away from logic being the only factor in their consensus-building.

They bid a temporary farewell to Jona and the ship, networking briefly with the outside of the ship's hull and it sent up bright sparks in reply: Tali processed vague feelings of hopefulness and encouragement, which she supposed was a binary equivalent of "good luck" from the ship known as Little Sister. The plan was for Little Sister to remain on Earth and wait for them, rather than return to Rannoch. It would have been more efficient, of course, to send the ship on supply runs in the meantime, but Tali felt distinctly nervous about this mission, so she preferred to have their means of escape as accessible as possible. And, if this location was compromised, the ship could simply leave and wait in orbit until Tali contacted Jona.

A mission. It was strange thinking about it that way. She knew that it wasn't, not really. All they were doing was tracking down Tiersa and then, hopefully, finding some way to keep her out of harm's way. But the moment she had stepped out of the ship and placed her feet on Earth's soil, Tali couldn't help but feel like this was reminiscent of…of the old times, as Garrus would have said. There was definitely something…Shepard-ish…about being on a rescue mission.

The thought filled Tali with a sort of confidence. Maybe all her old friends were gone, but she had Adrienna and Gabriel at her side and they were a kind of team, weren't they? And nothing was going to stop them. She smiled at both of them. Adrienna returned the smile with a guarded expression that didn't quite brighten her troubled eyes, but Gabriel whirred and strode off into the woods, almost as if the unit were looking forward to the challenge that finding Tiersa would bring.

There was a skycar stowed underneath a tarp in the shelter of the trees: a positively ancient model by current standards but it would have to do. Gabriel was barely able to squeeze into the back seat. Tali turned to look at the ship and raised her hand in a gesture of farewell, hoping that they would see both Little Sister and Jona again soon. Then Tali turned to climb into the driver's seat…only to find that Adrienna was already sitting there. Tali gave her a look.

"What?" the human asked innocently, positioning her hands on the wheel.

"Really? Out."

Adrienna pouted. It was a terrible sight.

"Come on, let me drive. Urdnot Wrex taught me how!"

"That," Tali said, pulling the human out of the seat by her elbow, "is definitely not helping your case."

"I can drive," Adrienna sulked, begrudgingly sliding over. "Urdnot Wrex says I'm great. And he said that he even gave Shepard some pointers."

Tali burst out laughing as she settled in behind the driver's console and geared up the skycar. The engine sputtered to life with some effort, so Tali ran her fingers over the dash and made a few adjustments to the power systems that she helped would support this old model on their journey to Vancouver, the nearest human city.

"Adrienna," she said, "we _all _gave Shepard 'pointers' while she was driving." Tali had that lilt to her voice that came only when she was just on the verge of laughter. "Most of mine consisted of '_Keelah_, please no, not the cliff.' Though I recall that Wrex's advice was a little more stoic. More like: 'You know, Shepard, you don't have to hit everything on the way down.'"

Tali shook her head, chuckling.

"Once, I remember Shepard managed to get the Mako stuck on a survey marker—trapped it between the front and back axles. Those markers were orange. And they glowed. So I'm still not sure how she managed to crash into it, let alone get us stuck up there…" Tali shook her head, smiling. "I think it took over an hour of reversing and fiddling with the jump drives to finally shake us loose. All the while with Garrus—your father, I mean—pleading to let him…or even me…or even that shifty-looking cow wandering by…to take over the wheel." Tali sighed. "Shepard wouldn't have it, of course. Told us we could walk to the Normandy if we had a problem with her driving."

Adrienna smiled and she pulled out the metal coin she still wore from underneath her armor. The coin was engraved with Shepard's image. Tali knew that such medallions had been manufactured after the War by the humans and then distributed, mainly to children, as a kind of human protective charm. Out of the corner of her eye, Tali stole a glance at the stylized image of Shepard, an aura of light engraved around her dead friend's stylized face.

"She was really that bad a driver?" Adrienna asked, sounding more amused by the apparent humanity of the galaxy's savior than anything else.

"The only thing she was worse at," Tali confessed in conspiratorial tones, "was dancing. And that's not just my opinion. These facts were generally acknowledged. I think that the Alliance finally gave her a shuttle pilot during the War because Shepard had become too important all of a sudden for them to risk her impaling herself on a survey marker."

Adrienna snorted.

"And that's not the worst of it," Tali continued. "I only had to survive Shepard's driving on desolate planets with little more than rocks and cliffs. And in the Mako too, which really could handle just about anything. Your father…now he had the privilege of riding with her on that chase through downtown Illium in a skycar. He told me about it afterwards: Liara screaming out instructions. Shepard snarling back. And your father just trying to stay quiet and praying to all the turian spirits he knows that he'll live through the next oncoming lane of traffic…"

Tali laughed again, but noticed that Adrienna had gone suddenly quiet. There was a serious slant to her eyebrows and her brown eyes were thoughtful.

"What is it?" Tali asked quietly, suddenly subdued. Maybe mentioning Garrus hadn't been the smartest thing.

"Nothing," said Adrienna, turning her gaze to the window.

Tali sighed.

"Adrienna…"

"Nothing, really. I mean…" and she swallowed, looking back over at Tali. "It's just that, Tali, you talk about the War and the stuff that came before with such…such light. Dad…well, he never talked about what things were like before. He never said anything to me about the War. About Shepard. Nothing. Not until Tiersa came along and pressured him into it. And even then he was so sad when he thought about it. All darkness. But when you talk about those times…you're nothing but light."

She flicked her gaze back out the window.

"That probably sounded stupid," she muttered.

"No," Tali assured her, genuinely touched but also a little confused. "But, Adrienna, you can't be too hard on your father. I try my best to remember the good moments more than the bad, I'll admit, but we both lost a lot coming out of that War. Your father maybe more than me."

"You both lost her," Adrienna pointed out.

Tali nodded.

"True. But he loved her."

"You didn't?"

Tali's purple lips curled in a wry smile.

"No, of course I loved her. We all loved her, in our own ways. _Keelah_, the whole galaxy loves her now, though in the early days that certainly wasn't the case. I just meant…" Tali sighed and ran her fingers through her dark hair, trying to figure out how to explain it all to this young human. "…I mean that Shepard let your father see sides of her that the rest of us only caught glimpses of. It made him love her more than the rest of us ever could. And I think…I think he understood that too. I think that sometimes that was a difficult burden for him to bear."

It wouldn't do any good to tell Adrienna what her father had been like for the decade following the War. She doubted the young human had any inkling of how broken Garrus Vakarian had been before his chance encounter with Adrienna when she was nothing more than an infant. Tali had seen Garrus Vakarian at his worse, but she didn't want to choose to remember him that way. She preferred the image of the turian she saw reflected in the depths of Adrienna's eyes: flawed, yes, but ultimately a hero.

"I'm just…" Adrienna said slowly, thoughtfully, "what I really meant is that I like your stories, Tali. I always have. They make me realize that Dad had a whole other life before I came along." She shook her head, a sliver of a smile tugging at one corner of her lips. "The only other time I ever saw that side of him was when he had a rifle in his talons. He'd crack some dumb joke and then blow the head off the farthest target and make it look so easy and…" Adrienna's smile turned into a full-fledged grin "…and it really was something."

"I know, I know. I teased him mercilessly about it, you know."

"About being a crack shot?"

"He was so very…very…irritating about it that I couldn't help but threaten to let the husks get a little too close sometimes. Maybe let them tear a chunk or two off his ego. Your father may have been good," Tali said, feigning dead seriousness, "but there's a reason he needed me in front." She shrugged. "I had the shotgun."

"Tactically speaking," Gabriel said from the back seat, "the effectiveness of either weapon would be rendered insignificant with proper biotic support."

"You would say that, wouldn't you?" Tali mumbled.

"Affirmative," Gabriel shot back cheerfully.

"Gabriel," Adrienna said, turning around in her seat suddenly, "…had you ever actually fought in a real firefight? I mean, before the Cerberus troops on Rannoch?"

The geth paused and flicked one flap up in Adrienna's direction.

"…Negative…"

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Were you scared?"

"I do not understand the relevance of that inquiry, Adrienna Vakarian."

The human settled back down into her seat with a quirked eyebrow, clearly considering that an answer in the affirmative. Gabriel seemed perturbed by her assumption, shifting uncomfortably in the back seat.

"That's amazing," Tali mumbled.

"What?" Adrienna asked.

"Peace," Tali said simply. "The quarians had been at war with the geth for centuries before I was born. I grew up amongst a people that were always at war. The end of the Reaper War…it also meant the end of all wars. The fact that a geth mobile platform could actually live out a significant portion of its lifespan without engaging in combat is amazing to me."

Gabriel whirred uncomfortably.

"With respect, Creator Tali, not all geth mobile platforms prior to the Synthesis were intended to engage combatively with organics. Our mobile platforms were designed by the Creators. And they were designed to serve. In fact, most of the platforms were designated caretakers of the homeworld during the Creators' Exodus. And many of those you would have met personally in combat would have been heretics."

Tali stared at Gabriel, taken aback. And, for a moment, she understood that growing up amongst a people constantly at war with his people had deeply ingrained attitudes that, even now, continued to surface when Tali did not intend offense. Of course Gabriel was right. But, in her time, a mobile platform was only designed for one thing: to kill.

"I know that, Gabriel. I'm sorry," she said slowly. "That was a poor choice of words. You're right. The geth were designed to serve, not for war."

Tali was genuinely apologetic, but she suddenly saw an opening: an opportunity to figure something out that had been bothering her, not only since she discovered Gabriel had helped Adrienna leave Rannoch, but for as long as she had worked with the geth.

"Gabriel," Tali said carefully, "what you're doing now…helping us, I mean...Why are you doing it?"

The tilt in Gabriel's head became more pronounced.

"Once again, I do not understand the relevance of this inquiry."

Tali knew she was in for it now, so she forged ahead.

"Are you helping Adrienna because you desire to serve her? Because you still need to serve organics?"

Now, it was Adrienna's turn to look perturbed, her brow furrowing.

"Wait," she said, looking back at Gabriel, "I thought you were helping me because…because you're my friend. One of my only friends." Adrienna turned to Tali. "Are you saying that he's only helping because of some innate programming that he can't go against?"

Tali's only response was to raise her glowing eyes to meet the image of Gabriel's single light in the rearview mirror.

"The thing is," she said to Adrienna, still watching Gabriel, "I don't know the answer to that. The geth are their own people now. So you'd have to ask Gabriel."

Adrienna turned around in her seat and fixed the geth with a stare.

"Gabriel?"

The geth pointed its light down at its hands for a moment. Gabriel summoned a small spark of blue biotics into the center of each palm and studied the effect for a moment, head tilted to one side. Then, he closed his long fingers into twin hardened fists, snuffing out the sparks as he did so. He looked up, his light shining directly into Adrienna's face. It was bright against her brown skin and she winced, but did not look away.

"This unit…Error. Personal pronoun. I. I only serve those I wish to serve," Gabriel said slowly. "Adrienna Vakarian and Creator Tali, I wish to assist you not because I am geth but because we are friends. Are these parameters for my continued involvement acceptable?"

Tali smiled.

"Yes. I believe they are."


	6. Accumulating Ghosts

**Chapter 6: Accumulating Ghosts**

They drove through the morning, arriving on the outskirts of the human city of Vancouver as Sol reached the peak of its journey across the pale blue sky. Tali couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy: Earth, or at least this part of it, was so lush and green. Even as they passed through the ruined outskirts of the city—the sections which had been abandoned and never rebuilt after the end of the Reaper War—Tali was startled to see the glowing green vegetation twirling up amongst the scattered concrete. Tali had never been to Vancouver before—just London and that was during the War and its immediate aftermath. London had been grey and broken, but this part of Earth was green and blue, so entirely unlike the rusty brown palette that still dominated most of Rannoch's landscape.

For the first time, Tali could understand why Shepard had fought so hard to save her planet. Tali's own connection to Rannoch was utterly different: Rannoch was all about unrealized dreams and future possibilities. Yet here on Earth the beauty of the planet was already realized, even amidst the decades-old devastation left by the War. Suddenly, in one glance at the beauty below the skycar, Tali understood everything Shepard had tried to explain to her about the pain of leaving Earth behind at the start of the War. At the time, Tali had compared Shepard's feelings to her own longings for a homeworld, but she realized now that she had been wrong: Shepard had not been fighting for a dream of a homeworld, but for a homeworld that was already her anchor in the galaxy. She could skirt through stars and galaxies, but as long as Shepard had Earth, she had been able to find her way home again.

Tali understood that now in a way that she couldn't have without seeing Earth like this: flowering and growing. And she suddenly felt a keen pain in her stomach as she realized how much she already missed Rannoch, her germinating seed of a planet that could perhaps one day bloom as Earth did now.

Rain splattered against the windshield as both the clouds and the skycar left the altitude of the mountains behind. The raindrops landed on the leaves of the plants overtaking the ruined buildings, the water refracting and magnifying the circuitry in the surface of the leaves. As they drove further towards the coast, Tali noticed that they had reached the inhabited parts of the city. She merged into a skylane and watched the humans beneath them going about their daily business. The crowds below them glowed with a soft green light as the circuitry along the humans' skin pulsed. Occasionally, there were sparks as two humans reached out and touched the pads of their fingers together, networking to exchange information.

There were even more than a few asari visible below, which made sense considering that many had had human partners they had been loathed to leave behind after the War had ended: "Earth's War brides," Tali had heard them called amongst diplomatic circles. The patterns along the asari's faces glowed blue instead of green, and, whenever they networked with a passing human, the sparks that shot off were a teal color. She knew that many of those asari had assumed that they could live out their partners' shorter lifespans on Earth and then return to Thessia later in their lives once the relays had been rebuilt. But Thessia hadn't survived the War. There were re-colonization efforts, of course, but they had been slow. Tali often wondered what the future would hold for the asari: their biotic power came largely from the eezo laced into their planet's core. Although a few generations born entirely off-world would hardly diminish the asari's power, she couldn't help but wonder whether the asari would evolve away from their biotics and what that would mean for them.

If Liara had lived to hear the news about Thessia, Tali knew that she would have some kind of hypothesis for the future of her people. But Liara was gone. And Shepard. And Garrus. All that was left was Tali. She had once been the youngest and most naïve, but now she found herself shepherding her friends' children through the galaxy. Now, she was the elder, the leader, the admiral.

As they drove along the docks, now in the heart of the city, Tali caught sight of an Alliance frigate perched beside the shoreline. Tali gasped as she read the name printed on the side, though she would have recognized the ship's sleek curves anywhere.

"Adrienna!" she said, jostling the girl out of her own thoughts. "The Normandy is here!"

"Sorry, I guess I should have warned you," Adrienna said, looking out the window. "It's been there for as long as I can remember. They've turned it into a museum."

"A…museum?"

And now Tali really did feel old. Adrienna nodded.

"Dad took me once. I was pretty young. My friends…well, they'd gone to see it and I really wanted to go. That was before I knew who Dad really was, so it's kinda strange remembering that now." She frowned. " It's really strange actually. I was so small."

Tali's bright eyes narrowed to slights.

"Did I say something wrong?" Adrienna asked hesitantly, confused.

"No," Tali said, shaking her head. "I just…"

She sighed, once again trying to figure out to explain this to the young human. She took one last glance at the Normandy as the skylane veered away and the harbor disappeared behind a line of skyscrapers. Tali hoped that the beautiful ship was enjoying her retirement at the edge of the ocean.

Tali knew it was strange to think about the Normandy that way—as a "she"—especially in light of the Synthesis where most ships had gained actual souls and sentience, yet the Normandy had been passed over because EDI could already think independently and, really, she had been the Normandy's soul. Tali could remember Liara hypothesizing that EDI's programs had been transferred out of the ship and into her mobile platform because of EDI's own subconscious beginning to think of itself as more of a human than a vehicle. Regardless of the reasons, EDI's isolation into her mobile platform had left the Normandy without a soul of its own.

All of the Normandy SR-2's systems had used EDI's programming as its foundations and, without her presence, the ship had gone completely offline. Working without so much as a nav system was why it had taken so long to get the Normandy up in the air again after they had crashed on that garden world after the War. It had taken months. Months of rerouting crucial systems around the gaps left by EDI. Months of striving to coax the drive core to life. All while Tali and the other humans struggled to learn how to use their new abilities. Tali found that communicating with machines came more easily to her than to the humans, but all the crew was learning slowly. While still able to network, Liara found her primary asset was the increase in her biotic power and she assisted more with using her enhanced biotic fields to move supplies around than any of the actual technical work. And Garrus, suspicious as ever, was uncomfortable trying to network with anything, although he managed to cope with the visor becoming organically integrated into his left eye. But, in his own ways, he'd worked harder than any of them to get the Normandy into the air, foregoing sleep and rations to get each task finished. And, on the rare times when there was nothing he could do, Tali could remember Garrus wandering up to Shepard's quarters, supposedly to feed the fish but sometimes disappearing for hours.

And then there was Garrus's complete conviction that they would return to Earth to find Shepard again, which he wore in a mask of apparent good humor, joking with Tali about which one of them would have to eat the other when the dextro-rations ran out. But Tali had occasionally glanced up from yet another futile attempt to reboot the drive core to see Garrus just staring off into space, his blue eyes intensely fixed on nothing but a space on the floor. Once, Kaidan had slipped up, saying "if we find Shepard again" instead of "when" and the turian had suddenly become predatory and dangerous, throwing Kaidan up against the wall, forcing Tali to step between the two and give a speech about how Shepard was going to throw them all out of the airlock _when _she heard about this.

Those that been stranded on the Normanday had all been stressed, all in the dark about what had happened. Tali remembered being haunted by the uncertainty of it all as they scrambled to work on repairs. They didn't know if the War was over. If it had been won or lost. If the green light that had changed them all had been Shepard's doing or the Reaper's. They longed for Shepard. For her guidance. But being on the Normandy without her had been even harder on Garrus than it had been on the rest of them. And, although she didn't doubt Adrienna's story, Tali was completely shocked that he would have willingly gone back to the Normandy. To revisit so many memories. To walk among ghosts.

She realized that Adrienna was still watching her, waiting for an explanation. Tali sighed.

"Your father," she began to explain, "had a tendency to accumulate ghosts. His time on Omega, as Archangel…you could just see that he was haunted by the spirits of the team he'd lost. He wouldn't talk to me about it much. But it was difficult to watch him carry around all that guilt and anger. And after Shepard died…he was even worse. I just can't imagine your father going back to the Normandy." Tali bit her lip, turning away. "The place must have been filled with ghosts for him."

"It's…it's hard to remember," Adrienna said, nodding. "I mean, I can remember how excited I was, but it's kinda hard to think about what he was like. I do remember…one of the old crew was there. I dunno, she was giving a lecture or something. And he freaked out. Told me that we had to go." She gave Tali a look. "And he actually yelled at me for wanting a Wrex toy."

Tali raised her eyebrows.

"There was a Wrex…toy?"

Adrienna winced.

"Yeah, having met Urdnot Wrex now, I can understand what a insult that would be to a krogan." She grinned a little "Still, I wish I could have shown one of those toys to Urdnot Wrex himself, just to see the look on his face. It was so…cuddly." She chuckled. "Anyhow, this old woman with silver hair showed up and Dad tried to get us to the elevator, but we ended up running into her anyhow. And she gave him Shepard's dogtags."

"Really?" Tali asked, not sure what to make of the whole situation. "That had to have been Dr. Chakwas, but…why? Did they find Shepard's body? I'm sure I would have heard…"

"Yeah, I know. I don't really know what it meant."

Tali had to ask, though she was sure that she knew the answer.

"What happened to the tags?"

Adrienna's face immediately closed off, the grin fading away. She looked out the window.

"I don't think he ever took them off," she said quietly. "So I guess they're…wherever he is."

Tali placed a hand on Adrienna's shoulder.

Now that they were further into the city, Tali couldn't help but notice all the Alliance uniforms throughout the crowds below them. At first, she assumed it was simply because Vancouver was Alliance Headquarters for Earth, but, as she looked closer, it became apparent that the uniforms were on-duty and definitely policing the populace. As an Alliance skycar passed by them, she realized that these were the Alliance MP, which had taken over the policing of both military personnel and civilians after the War.

"I think we should go check out the old house," Adrienna said suddenly, turning away from the window.

Tali frowned.

"I'm not sure if that's such a good idea."

"I really don't think Tiersa would just disappear without leaving some clue that would let me contact her if I really needed to. I mean, what if I were in trouble?"

"I think being pursued across the galaxy by former terrorists qualifies as trouble."

"Okay, point taken. But what if she left something at the house? I mean, I'd really be the only person who would think to check the house, right? So wouldn't that be the logical place to stow something she only wanted me to find?"

"Maybe…"

Taking Tali's lack of outright refusal as permission, Adrienna leaned forward and punched the old address into the nav computer. With a sigh, Tali triggered the skycar to take them to the coordinates. She supposed that they needed somewhere to start, and Adrienna's old house would be as good as any.

Adrienna sat up as they reached her old neighbourhood. Gabriel's eye focused and re-focused on the humans and asari streaming by as Tali landed the skycar down the street from the coordinates Adrienna had given her. As they walked along the street, Tali noticed that the houses in this area were all essentially the same modest two-storey build. It was impossible to imagine Garrus existing here. The neighbourhood was so…human. So safe. Tali stole a quick glance at Adrienna, wondering how the young human was managing this walk through her childhood haunts. The human stared straight ahead, striding towards the house that had once been her home.

They passed a park that was filled with children playing. A few parents turned around and their mouths immediately gaped open in shock at the unmasked quarian, geth mobile platform, and strangely-tattooed human with a rifle strapped to her back.

"Let's…make this quick," Tali muttered, as several of the parents reached for their children.

She was realizing—too late, as usual—that they really should have met with one of her quarian contacts at the embassy first in order to assess what the situation was on Earth. Tali felt some of her confidence shift and she thought about how long it had been since she'd done this—and how walking around as an armed alien had never really been a problem with Shepard. But they didn't have Shepard now. And the looks they were getting from the humans they passed…they reminded Tali, unsettlingly, of the looks she had often received during her pilgrimage. Of course, given Earth's current population mix, she'd expected that they would stand out…but this was different. Hostile. Earth had changed after the War, Tali understood now.

Adrienna stopped and Tali followed the young human's gaze to a house across the street. Adrienna's brow was furrowed.

"What do you think we should do?" she asked Tali. "Do you think if we just knocked whoever is living there now would let us look around the house?" She looked around nervously. "I always remembered the people here being friendlier."

Tali knew that Shepard would have just walked up to the house and asked to look around, but the atmosphere really did feel different here. This was a population that was unused to seeing weapons, to seeing strangers. Yes, she knew what Shepard would do, but Tali felt that now was the time for caution.

"I think we should leave," she said. "We'll come back later"

Adrienna bit her bottom lip and looked reluctantly at the house across the street. But then she nodded. Tali sighed with relief that the human wasn't going to argue. They turned to walk back up the street to the skycar, but there was a young human standing in front of them, staring. His mouth gaped open slightly. Then, to Tali's horror, he managed to stammer out one word.

"…Adrienna…?"

Adrienna stopped and stared at the human, her brown eyes searching his face. The young man was tall—matching Adrienna inch for inch—with black hair that fell in front of his eyes. Dark eyes that widened as Adrienna approached him.

"…Alex…?" she said softly.

The young man laughed.

"John, actually, but I can forgive you that one, since it has been…God, it's been years. The rifle's easier to recognize than you are."

He raised an arm for a moment, as if he was going to touch Adrienna, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he ran his fingers through a strand of hair that had fallen over his face, staring at her earnestly.

"Adrienna, what happened to you? You just disappeared. Mom tried filing reports with MP, but they never gave us any answers and…" The young human continued to babble. "Why are you here now? Did you come back to the house? Steph and Tyrell live there now, but they don't use the roof and so I don't think they bothered to take down that rifle range. It's still up there. I told Alex just yesterday that we should…God, Alex! And Mom. God. They need to see you. Alex didn't even think you and your dad were even alive. He needs to know that you're…okay?"

The young man's babbling finished with a question as his gaze searched Adrienna, his eyes lingering for a long time on the facial markings. Adrienna blinked and looked down at herself. For the first time, she seemed to notice how strange she looked. The young man was wearing a casual t-shirt and pants. She was wearing armor and a rifle. And the tattoos. She stared down at her feet.

"I—"

But she was interrupted by a wail of sirens and an Alliance skycar roaring down onto the street. The skycar stopped, hovering as a trio of uniformed military police leapt onto the pavement and moved towards them.

"Stop!" one of them bellowed.

Tali stepped forward.

"Is there a problem?" she asked.

"ID. Now."

"My companions and I just arrived on Earth," she said slowly. "We were making our way to…report our presence to immigration authorities. This young man was just giving us directions."

It sounded hollow, even to Tali, but, at nothing more than a glance from the man in the middle of the pack, the police all pulled out their pistols.

"Down on the ground. Now."

This seemed to be an overreaction. Tali's bright eyes narrowed as neither she nor Gabriel nor Adrienna complied with the order. John was instantly on the pavement, though, and then tugging at Adrienna's ankle for her to get down as well, his face awash in fear and confusion.

"Look," Tali tried again, putting on her best political voice, "I'm here on a diplomatic mission for the quarian people and we simply became lost. I'm sure if you were to just point us in the right direction, we can sort everything out."

She gave the officer a winning smile.

"I told you," he barked, "to get on the ground. Are you refusing to comply? Please tell me you're resisting arrest because that would just make my day." His voice dropped dangerously low. "It's been a long time since I've had the privilege to kill some alien scum."

This was reminding Tali more and more of the disaster that had been her pilgrimage. Still, it was probably better to cooperate. Both Gabriel and Adrienna were watching her, she realized, waiting for Tali to decide what to do. She nodded and began to sink down to her knees. But, as she did so, she happened to glance over the officer's shoulder to where their skycar still hovered. And suddenly Tali could see an image on the skycar's nav screen: an image of Adrienna's face, spinning in profile.

A cold realization hit her. These Alliance MP were looking for them. The Cerberus troops hadn't been lying. Cerberus was a part of the Alliance now or, at the very least, had access and control over Alliance resources.

Gabriel and Adrienna both looked towards her and Tali suddenly realized what it felt like to be Shepard. Tali was never any good at these split-second decisions. She needed time to think, to analyze, to figure out what would be the best course of action. Maybe if they cooperated, they would be able to find out what was going on. Tali was a former quarian admiral. The Alliance wouldn't be able to detain her without a serious intergalactic incident.

If Tali really was on a diplomatic mission, that was. If someone besides her husband knew where she had gone. If she hadn't insisted on keeping this mission a secret and as unofficial as possible.

Tali exchanged a look with Gabriel. The flaps above his eye flickered slightly and Tali thought that, maybe, he had come to the same conclusion.

"Down on the ground!" the officer barked again. "This is your last warning!"

This time, the officer fired a shot past Tali's head. She heard a woman scream from down the street. What she needed was time: time to figure out what the Alliance was after and whether or not they could trust them. They were out of time, though, and Tali was paralyzed with indecision. She started to move her hand, slowly, towards her belt.

"Stop!" the man barked, "Or I will fire again!"

Gabriel suddenly whirred and all the pistols were instantly trained on him. Tali noticed that the humans' grips suddenly became less steady on their weapons. They'd never fought a geth before, she realized. _Keelah_, these humans had probably never been this close to a geth in their lives. Maybe the officer in charge could have served during the War, but the others were simply too young…

"This unit," Gabriel said, stepping towards the men, "will not be taken alive. Initiating self-destruct sequence. Recommend retreating to minimum safe distance."

"Gabriel?" Adrienna gasped, her brown eyes wide. "What are you doing?"

Tali had figured it out though. Gabriel turned his single eye towards the three men, staring straight into their faces.

"Twenty…nineteen…" Gabriel said.

"Move! Move!" screamed the leader. "Clear the civilians!"

John leapt to his feet, suddenly pale, and grabbed Adrienna's arm, pulling her away. But Adrienna wrenched out of his grasp and moved closer to Gabriel. The geth had gone unnaturally still as the countdown crackled from his voice systems. Tali grabbed Adrienna by the shoulder, dragging her away.

"Tali, we just can't—"

"…thirteen…twelve…"

But Tali ignored her, sprinting back down the street and pulling Adrienna along by the wrist. Their skycar wasn't that far away. Tali was sure that they could make it in time. They sprinted past the MP's skycar, which the three officers had ducked behind.

"Stop!" one of them ordered. He squeeze a few shots off in their direction, but they missed entirely. "Stop immediately!"

"That is not even close to the minimum safe distance!" Tali yelled at them in response. She twisted her head around to see the officers' faces turn pale. And then the officers were scrambling back into their skycar, veering off down the street.

"…nine…eight…"

Tali and Adrienna dove into their own skycar and Tali gunned the engines.

"Tali," Adrienna gasped again, "none of this makes any sense."

But Tali concentrated on piloting the skycar.

Back towards Gabriel.

She lowered the skycar until it hovered just behind the geth. Gabriel craned his head around until he saw them.

"…six….five…"

Tali hit the button on the hatch for the doors. Gabriel took one glance around the completely deserted street. It was astounding how quickly humans could move when they were motivated, thought Tali.

"…fourthreetwoone…" Gabriel chirped off, accelerating his countdown.

Then, he leapt up into the skycar and, calmly, closed the hatch behind him. Tali gunned the engines and shot out of the neighbourhood. She had no idea where the MP vehicle had ended up, but she wasn't about to let them lose the advantage Gabriel had bought them.

Adrienna stared at the geth as he settled calmly into the back seat, looking immensely pleased with himself.

"You're…you're ridiculous," she said. And then she burst out laughing.

"Where exactly did you learn that little trick?" Tali couldn't help but ask.

"I have researched human culture," Gabriel said conversationally. "Some of the ancient human literature I encountered had an…interesting…view on synthetic lifeforms. There were more than a few incidences of this apparent 'self-destruct' sequence. And humanity's disproportionate fear of countdowns is a recurring motif through many of their cultural artifacts. I merely employed these tactics in order to secure our safe escape, since it appears that the Alliance military may not be prioritizing Adrienna Vakarian's best interests."

Adrienna's laughter died down immediately.

"Do you think that's true, Tali?" she asked anxiously. "That it really is the Alliance that's after Tiersa?"

"They fired on us, Adrienna. That can't possibly be their usual procedure for simply apprehending individuals without ID. They had your profile pulled up on their nav screens. They were looking for you. They wanted to arrest us."

"Why? I attacked those Cerberus troops on Tuchanka…but only because they fired first."

Tali ran her hand along the back of her neck.

"_Keelah_, I don't know. I need time to think. I was never any good at this conspiracy stuff. That was Liara's area of expertise. But…but if the Alliance really has been using former Cerberus troops to attack the private residence of a quarian admiral…there's something big that must be at stake here."

"What are we going to do?"

"Lie low. We'll be safe at the quarian embassy. I have contacts and...old friends. We'll use them to try and figure out what exactly is going on. And then we'll find Tiersa."


	7. Being the Responsible One

**Chapter 7: Being The Responsible One**

The quarian embassy was only half-finished: as Tali had said it would, the announcement of the first working link in the new mass relay network had come a couple weeks ago. These first two relays meant that there was a sudden need for inter-species diplomacy once again and, without the Citadel as a central administration hub, the quarians had decided to build embassies on as many alien homeworlds as possible. Other races had begun the same process (apparently the krogan and turians both had ambassadors stationed on each others' homeworlds) but the quarians, as usual, had been ahead of the game because of their exceptional FTL tech. Still, the air of Earth's quarian embassy lingered with the odors of new paint and recently-finished construction as Tali and the others walked up to the front desk and quietly explained that they needed to see the ambassador.

Tali had no difficulties speaking to Earth's quarian ambassador, since he was a young diplomat who only had this post because Tali had recommended him for an aide position over ten years ago now. It had been easy to convince him to let them stay, unofficially, in the unfinished part of the building. The ambassador had been appalled that Tali, as a former admiral and War hero, would not be using the finished part of the building, where they had ample facilities and immune-boosting supplements. But after Tali had impressed upon him that their situation was dangerous, the ambassador had been convinced to respect their need for secrecy and handed over the access codes for the sections of the building that were still under construction.

They had stowed the skycar in an underground parkade several blocks away: close enough to be useful, but not close enough to be used as direct evidence of their location. Not that the MP would be allowed to take one official step in the quarian embassy without causing a serious diplomatic incident anyhow. But, still, if they had been willing to attack Tali's house on Rannoch, who knew what lengths this enemy would go to in order to get what they wanted—which seemed to be, at the moment, anyone connected with Tiersa.

They settled down in one of the unfinished rooms. Only half of the traditional quarian tapestries had been arranged on the walls, but Tali still felt a meditative calm descend over her as they arranged blankets on the floor. This room was almost like a miniature piece of Rannoch on Earth. It was good to be home, even if it was just for a little while.

She wasn't particularly surprised when Adrienna drew her aside and explained her intention to go back to the house that evening.

"That" Tali said honestly, "is a supremely stupid idea."

"This unit insists on accompanying you," Gabriel said, stepping forward.

Adrienna brushed them both aside.

"It's you and Gabriel that stand out," she reasoned. "I'm human. Now that it's dark I can go back and no one will even notice me."

"Because the tattoos are the perfectly incognito," Tali muttered dryly. "And it's not like you're the one they're looking for or anything like that."

"I can cover the tattoos up easily enough. I've done it before," Adrienna assured her. "They won't be a problem. I'm just going to check the roof. That's all. John said there was still some of our old stuff up there. And if Tiersa has left anything, it'll be there. I'm sure of it."

Tali sighed.

"You're not exactly asking my permission. Are you?"

"No," Adrienna admitted. "I'm going anyhow. I just…I just wanted to let you know that I haven't disappeared again. Okay?"

Gabriel whirred and moved into a corner the room. Although he was clearly preparing to power down for the night, his objections to Adrienna's mission were obvious in how he fixed the human with a judgmental stare from his single eye.

Tali's lips tightened as she watched Adrienna change out of her armor and into a casual outfit from her kit that, Tali admitted, would let her blend in a lot better than they had before. Adrienna had the Mantis still, but she folded it and tucked it along the back of her hips and hid its shape with a bulky overcoat.

"I can't lose you," Tali said quietly as the human moved towards the door. "You understand that, right? Your father's ghost would shoot me in the head. Repeatedly."

"I'll be fine. I did make it across the galaxy on my own. You don't need to worry so much."

Tali did worry, though, as Adrienna slipped out the back of the embassy and into the Earth's moonlit night. They had taken every precaution, but Tali still couldn't help but think about the image of Shepard Adrienna was wearing around her neck and hope that some of the humans' strange ideas about being protected by such charms would be true.

When Adrienna and Tiersa had finally arrived on Rannoch, Tali could remember how Tiersa had walked calmly down the ship's ramp. The asari teenager hadn't said a word, but had simply stopped in front of Tali and, her deep blue eyes reflecting eternally with pity, she'd placed Garrus's helmet into Tali's arms. Then, Tiersa had turned away as Tali had stared at the empty darkness behind the visor, tears springing into her eyes. The tears hadn't just been for the loss of her friend—although they certainly were for that—but also because Tali understood what bravery it had taken for Tiersa to walk out of the ship with that helmet nestled in her blue arms.

But Adrienna, only twelve, had been reluctant to leave the ship that had been her home for the past two years. Tali's first glimpse of the young human was of a round face peering out from behind the corner of the ship's opened doorway. In the end, Gabriel had appeared and gently pushed the small human forward. She'd walked down the ramp towards Tali with her eyes cast to her feet, clutching the Mantis against her chest like it was her raft in a sea of troubles. And Tali had carefully handed Garrus's helmet back to Tiersa, understanding suddenly that the dead would wait, but, right now, this broken little human needed her help. Tali had swept Adrienna into her arms.

And then gently, ever so gently, Tali had pried the rifle from Adrienna's arms with quiet words: "You're safe now, little one. You won't ever need this again."

A promise Tali knew by now had been shattered beyond any kind of redemption. A promise Tali knew that, perhaps, she shouldn't have made in the first place. But she truly had believed in her own ability to keep Tiersa and Adrienna safe as they long as they were on Rannoch. And as Tali watched Adrienna move back out into the night, Tali couldn't help but remember how, in that moment when a much younger Adrienna had let Tali take the rifle from her arms, there had been true peace in the human's wide brown eyes as she had let herself feel safe for the first time in who knew how long. Once, Adrienna had been willing to let go of the violence.

Tali wondered when it had all changed again: when Adrienna rejected the possibility that she could ever be safe in a galaxy such as this one. Tali wondered when the young human had decided that she needed to take up the dance with danger that Tali herself had spent so much of her own life dancing in the hopes that those that came after her wouldn't ever have to do so.

She wondered if this meant that she had failed.

Maybe. But Tali knew that didn't mean she could stop trying.

Her brief (unofficial) chat with the quarian ambassador had told her nothing that she hadn't already guessed: yes, anti-alien sentiment had been growing on Earth since the War, but, no, it was not ordinary for MP to pull their weapons without provocation, even though the martial law had recently been upheld by the Alliance Defense Council. And Tali's Alliance contacts were…a more complicated affair. Tali had tried to keep in touch with as many of the old Normandy crew as she could, but it had still been years since she had spoken to most of them. Except one. And he wasn't even officially Alliance anymore. Still, Tali knew that it was worth a shot.

"Tali!" said Joker, his green eyes lighting up at her appearance in his vid comm. "Sorry. I didn't know it was you. The signal is reading from Earth. Are you there?"

"Yes. A…diplomatic mission."

"Tali, you really are the worst liar. What's up? Come on. You can trust me."

"A diplomatic mission that may involve trying to track down Tiersa."

Joker's eyes instantly narrowed.

"She's missing?"

Tali sighed and, for the first time since they had arrived on Earth, she felt tears start to sting her eyes. There was something about Joker that made it difficult to hide your feelings behind a mask of self-control.

"Joker, she's been 'missing' for years. You know that. She left for Earth after Adrienna disappeared and I…" Tali shook her head, drawing herself up straight and trying to push all her guilt aside for a moment. "Adrienna came back. You'll never guess where she was."

"…Tuchanka…?" Joker said, a little too guiltily.

Tali fixed him with a blazing stare.

"Geez, Tali. Do you think you could put the mask back on before you shoot death glares like that at people?"

"Joker."

"Sorry," he said miserably. "I'm sorry. I tried to tell you that I was sure she was okay…I just had to be a little…umm…vague about how sure I was. I'm really sorry. But Wrex threatened to do unspeakable things to me if I told you. He seemed to think that you'd hop on the next ship to Tuchanka and drag the kid kicking and screaming back to Rannoch."

"That's ridiculous," Tali sniffed.

"Wrex just thought the kid needed some space. I think he appointed himself like the Cool Krogan Uncle. Or her Fairy Godkrogan. Whatever. And you totally would have, by the way."

"Would have what?"

"Would have asked the nearest ship for a lift and then pulled the kid back from Tuchanka by her hair."

"Maybe…" Tali confessed, "but I had…have…a responsibility to take care of them."

"That was never something you had to do alone," Joker said quietly, serious for once in his life. "We all owe them something. Garrus and Liara and Shepard. Wrex was happy to take over babysitting duty for a while."

Tali looked away. Maybe Joker was right about her being a little too eager to take up all the responsibility. Joker coughed awkwardly.

"…but you weren't calling about Adrienna. What's this about Tiersa?"

"Adrienna came back to Rannoch after she was attacked. By Cerberus troops."

"Cerberus," Joker muttered, his eyebrows furrowing. "That can't be good."

"Cerberus troops that claimed they were working for the Alliance. They told her they were looking for Tiersa."

"How is that possible? Does that mean…they know?"

"I don't know," Tali confessed miserably. "I don't know what it means. I was hoping maybe you'd heard something. Knew something."

Joker shook his head.

"Well, I sure as hell didn't tell them. Cerberus or Alliance or anyone. But I'll interrogate EDI when she's home to see if she's betrayed us all and everything Shepard ever worked for."

"Yeah, that would be appreciated," Tali muttered, matching Joker's sarcasm. "Have you spoken to the others? Kaidan? Vega?"

"Actually, I'm a little worried about Vega, to tell you the truth. I haven't heard from him in a couple of weeks now. I know that he's a little ways up the Alliance food chain, so if anyone is aware of Cerberus being part of the Alliance, it'd be him. I'll keep trying and if I manage to get through to him, I'll contact you. And Kaidan…I dunno, Tali. He doesn't really talk to us anymore. Any of us. But I'll try."

"Don't—"

"Yeah. Don't worry. I won't tell them everything. I'll just make a few discreet inquiries. That okay?"

Tali nodded.

"EDI and I could catch a transport back to Earth. Now that you've got that mass relay working, it would only take a couple of months. I assume that was basically all your doing, by the way, since the quarians can't get anything done without you."

"Of course. They're announcing it next week that it's going to be officially named after me. The Tali'Zorah Vas Relay."

Joker snorted.

"Yup. Thought so. Well…stay in touch. And say 'hi' to the kid for me. Both kids, once you find Tiersa. You will. I know it."

"Joker?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks. I don't think there's much more you and EDI can do, so there's no need to leave Tiptree yet. But I'll let you know."

"Okay."

Joker's image flickered away and Tali frowned. She prayed that Joker's (hopefully) discreet inquiries yielded some results, but she wasn't sure what to think.

It had already occurred to her, of course, that Tiersa may have gotten herself into trouble with the Alliance. If she really had taken up the Shadow Broker's mantle…if she had decided that being ruthless was part of the job description…she could have done something truly terrible and the Alliance could legitimately need to bring her in. But Tali wasn't about to share this distant possibility with Adrienna. Telling her that her flawless asari big sister could have brought this upon herself would be unnecessarily cruel unless it were true. Though Adrienna was bright enough that Tali was sure the possibility would have, at the very least, crossed the young human's mind. But if Cerberus was involved…or what was left of Cerberus, at any rate…then it seemed to Tali that there had to be something more going on.

Tiersa had said she was going after whomever killed Garrus. Tiersa had convinced herself, since leaving Earth, that it wasn't just an isolated merc group out for revenge on Archangel—that someone or some organization had spurred them on, had provided finances and resources…Could that organization have been this Cerberus branch of the Alliance? Was that possible?

The next logical course of action was probably to fabricate some information and attempt to sell it back through one of the Broker's agents. Tali knew from personal experience that it was almost impossible to reach the Broker herself, no matter how useful your information might be, but perhaps if they made sure it was something personal, something that Tiersa could recognize as being from Adrienna, then they could manage to get a personal appearance from the Broker herself.

Tali started fiddling on her omnitool, but then realized that someone was behind her.

"I didn't even hear you come back," she said to Adrienna, turning around. "Any luck?"

Wordlessly, Adrienna handed Tali a datapad. Tali glanced at the glowing letters.

_Tiersa:_

_We need to meet. Please._

_-Archangel_

Tali shook her head.

"Adrienna, this…it's—"

"A trap. Obviously," Adrienna seemed entirely unshaken by the use of her father's name. "And there's no way Tiersa would be stupid enough to fall for this. I grabbed the datapad, just in case anyone else came across it."

Tali inputted the coordinates and the time.

"This is for tomorrow night. And the location is on the outskirts of the city."

Adrienna leaned over and her brows instantly furrowed.

"That's where…that's the building where the mercs held me."

Tali drew her arm around Adrienna's shoulders.

"Where he died?"

"Yeah…Tali, what is going on here? Clearly, whoever has planted this message knows…a lot. Not just about us but what happened to us. Do you think…maybe Tiersa wrote this herself? Maybe she knows that someone is after her and she's trying to lure them out?"

"I don't know."

"Hmm," said Adrienna. She pulled the rifle off her hip and started assembling it out into its full length. "Well, at least this is finally our first stroke of luck."

Tali was taken aback by the sudden appearance of Adrienna's confidence. The girl was actually smiling, the blue tattoos lines crinkling. Tali could see clearly where this was going.

"I'm not sure if walking into an ambush situation is really the smartest way to go about this," Tali offered.

"Doesn't matter. We don't necessarily have to walk straight into the trap. The message doesn't mention me or you, so we're probably not expected. All we need to do is observe. See what happens. We can go early and set up somewhere with a line of sight. Either we find Tiersa or we find more Cerberus troops who tell us what's going on. Either way, it's worth a little surveillance."

Adrienna was fiddling with the rifle: adjusting the scope and then networking with it in a shower of green sparks, checking the sightline, and then pulling her fingertip away from the trigger to fiddle with something else. The green circuitry along the side of her face pulsed gently in the dim light of the room. Tali's bright eyes narrowed. There was something a little too…guilty about the way the human was distracting herself with the rifle. Garrus had used to do the same thing when there was a topic he was avoiding.

"Adrienna, you didn't just go back to the roof, did you."

It wasn't a question. The human's hand faltered, almost imperceptibly, as she adjusted the scope of the rifle again.

"I'm sorry, Tali," she said, at least feeling guilty about it. "I couldn't just…John and Alex were my best friends. I had to at least let them know that I was okay."

Tali remembered the boys now: twins who, by some strange galactic coincidence, also happened to be the nephews of the SR-1's now-deceased Gunnery Chief. She wondered how Garrus could have stood it: looking into the eyes of a woman whose sister Shepard had essentially sent to her death. Not that Shepard had any other choice, but still…

Tali shook her head.

"All that finding them did was put them in danger."

"I know. I know," Adrienna said. "I didn't tell them much. I promise. But Mrs. Williams…she was there too and she asked about Dad and..." She glanced at Tali, stricken. "I couldn't lie to her. I just couldn't. I still didn't tell her his real name but…I did tell her how he died." She sighed, suddenly sad. "And Alex…Alex was angry. It was strange. Like he blamed me for disappearing on them all those years ago. Like it was my fault somehow."

"It's not your fault," Tali told her softly.

But Adrienna seemed to know that, for there was more confusion than resentment in Adrienna's eyes at Alex's reaction. Tali sometimes had difficulties understanding humans: they tended to feel the whims of circumstance like they were personal slights. She recalled why the look of hurt and bewilderment on Adrienna's face looked so familiar now: Shepard had worn a similar expression on her face when, after joining the Normandy SR-2, Tali had asked if Shepard had tracked down Kaidan yet and had considered asking him to join the mission. They'd just been sitting in the mess hall going over some of the remaining dossiers sent to them by the Illusive Man. Tali realized she'd just entered a no-go zone by the way Garrus's eyes locked with hers over Shepard's shoulders, his mandibles flicking suddenly against his jawline in warning, but it was too late. Tali had already asked, had already seen the way Shepard's features hardened as she began to recount—in brief, military report-style terms—her encounter with Kaidan on Horizon. Tali hadn't been exactly thrilled with Shepard after finding out that she was working with Cerberus, but seeing that brief glimpse of the hurt in Shepard's eyes at Kaidan's apparent reaction, Tali was glad that she'd made the right call to let her trust in Shepard overrule her distrust for Cerberus. Adrienna didn't have the years of military bravado to hide her emotions behind, though, and her face still looked troubled as she shook her head and looked thoughtfully down at the Mantis that she still cradled in her lap.

"I know. I just…I just don't understand why Alex would be so angry. But John helped me sneak back onto the roof and look through some of the stuff we left there. We found the datapad in the weapons locker," and, now, the faintest of smiles crept across Adrienna's face. "John said…he said that sometimes he still climbs to the roof and that he still thinks about me, wondering what happened to us. When this is all over…Tali, I think I'd like to visit them again. Once all this stuff is over."

Tali looked at the smile on Adrienna's face and wondered if by "them," the human really meant "John." But Tail hid her own knowing grin beneath a cough and, instead of inquiring further, she told Adrienna in as neutral a voice as possible that she was sure that, when the danger had passed, they could contact the Williams family again.

Then, Tali left Adrienna to tend to her rifle. She curled up in one of the blankets and tried to summon images of Rannoch to soothe her to sleep: her own lullaby of memories that drifted imperceptibly into dreams. Tali saw Shala, always the responsible one, holding her sister's and brother's hands as she toured them around the house after it was finally completed. And Zeri, when she was older, her lilac skin flush from some adventure she'd had scaling the nearby mountains with some friends. And Kal, her little Kal (when he was little), curling up in her lap and drifting softly to sleep as Tali sang him lullabies. They were quarian songs, songs of exile, of wishing for a homeworld. But they were the songs that Tali had grown up with and they were the only songs she knew. And, singing them as she stroked Kal's black hair, she was suddenly grateful for how archaic and irrelevant the songs were now. It was up to her children to write new ones.

And, as she dreamed of her family, Tali found herself wishing, more than anything, that Shepard could have seen the life she had lived. That she could see that Tali had kept living in order to prove that Shepard's sacrifice had never been in vain.

Then, Tali's dream-self thought she could see Shepard for a moment, almost standing in the corner of all these memories. Her friend's image was indistinct and shimmering with a strange green light. When Tali turned her mind's eye towards her so that she could catch a glimpse of her friend, she thought she saw the faintest of smiles spread across Shepard's lips: a smile that was a strange mixture of sadness and relief.

In her dream, Tali let her songs fade away and she turned away from Kal. She called out her dead friend's name. But, as soon as she did so, Tali could only watch as Shepard's image began to crackle and burn with that green light. And then Shepard dissolved away into nothingness.


	8. The Agony of Waiting

**Chapter 8: The Agony of Waiting**

"I have never before wished so much that Shepard was here," Tali mumbled, shifting as her omnitool scanned the area for any heat signatures. "I'm not accustomed to being the insane one. She did this all the time."

Adrienna's smile was a little too thin. She turned back to the Mantis's scope, moving it smoothly as she visually swept the building across the street from the roof on which the two of them were currently located. Tali's comm link beeped occasionally: Gabriel's signal that everything was all-clear as he patrolled through the empty four-storey office building that Adrienna had said once belonged to the mercs who had kidnapped her. And had tattooed her face. And then had gunned down her father. Tali knew that revisiting the spot where her father was killed was probably unnerving the girl more than she cared to admit, but Tali decided that, given how much danger they were in, it was probably better to let Adrienna repress those feelings until after the current crisis was over.

Once Tali had been young like her. Once, she had appreciated the fine buzz the adrenaline sent through her body in anticipation of whatever dangerous mission had been Shepard's order of the day. Now, Tali just felt vaguely nauseous and, once again, found herself longing for the comforts of her life on Rannoch.

How could she have ever been so naïve to feel like this life of adventure was what she wanted? She could remember embarking on her pilgrimage for the first time with excitement interlaced intimately with the terror of leaving the Flotilla for the first time. Her dreams of bravely and boldly seeking out new technology to save her people had tarnished rather quickly in light of the truth of how the galaxy operated. Maybe working with Shepard had restored some of the sheen…after all, she had been a SPECTRE with the most beautiful drive core Tali had ever seen stowed in the back of the Normandy. But even her missions with Shepard had taught Tali that there was only one unrelenting law of the galaxy: there was always sacrifice.

Adrienna pulled away from the scope, her fingers disconnecting from the rifle with a green flare from the circuitry along the side of her arms and face. She gave Tali a long look.

"What?" Tali asked her gently.

Adrienna shook her head (like Tali noticed she always did when she was afraid she was going to say something stupid), but the human forged ahead anyhow.

"You're probably really bored, aren't you?" Adrienna said.

Her tone was almost envious. Tali arched a brow at the young human.

"Well, waiting for something to happen isn't exactly the most thrilling of activities," Tali admitted.

"I feel…a little ridiculous for being so nervous," Adrienna confessed. "I mean, I'm sure this is nothing compared to some of things you've done. I'm sure you're not scared at all."

Finally understanding, Tali smiled at the girl.

"The waiting is the worst part," Tali confided. "Being nervous is a good thing. It sharpens your senses. That feeling is you telling your body that it needs to be ready for whatever happens next. Some of the things I did with Shepard may have been completely and utterly insane," she grinned, "but it was always waiting for those insane things to happen that was the worst part. If you think this is bad, you should attempt trying to get some rest the night before a suicide mission." Tali frowned. "Actually, don't."

"Suicide mission?" Adrienna asked, her eyes lighting up. Then, she grinned. "Clearly it was less suicidal than advertised."

Tali laughed, running her fingers through the her thick, dark hair.

"That was when Shepard was working for Cerberus. We were supposed to go through the Omega 4 relay to chase down the Collectors. We all thought it would be a one-way trip, so you can imagine what things were like the night before the mission."

Adrienna's brows furrowed.

"No, I guess you can't." Tali said, chuckling almost sadly. "I was feeling…anxious…about the mission. About what was going to happen. And when I'm nervous, I need to talk to someone," Tali flashed a grin at Adrienna. "So today I'm probably going to babble incessantly at you until Cerberus finally shows up."

Adrienna laughed.

"I don't mind. This suicide mission…Was Dad there too?"

Tali opened her mouth to speak, but then quickly closed it. There were some things you just don't tell a child about their parent.

"Yes," Tali said quickly, turning away and hoping that Adrienna would realize that particular topic was closed.

Tali remembered what it had been like waiting to go through the relay: waiting to die, they'd all believed at the time. Tali hadn't been able to sleep the night before, so she'd fretted around in engineering. But, after a few hours of chatting with the gently pulsating drive core, she had begun to doubt her own sanity. So she'd taken the elevator up to the main battery, certain that Garrus would still be calibrating the newly-installed Thanix canon. She could tease him about…well, she was sure she would be able to think of something. The light on the door had been green, so she had entered.

To find the main battery completely empty.

That had been odd. Unlike half the crew, Garrus hadn't been in any of the sleeping pods she had passed on her way through the main hallway. She could remember performing a quick search of the other floors to no avail.

She had wondered, suddenly, if he had left.

It didn't make any sense—not really. Tali could remember her younger and oh-so-naïve self frowning beneath her face mask as she tried to puzzle it out. There had been something…oddly protective…about the way Shepard had been treating Garrus lately. Maybe she had ordered him off the ship? Tali had doubted it. And every turian's unhealthy respect for authority aside, she had known that the only way to get Garrus to leave the Normandy at that point would have involved drugging some dextro-friendly alcohol and jettisoning him in a escape pod. So unless some of the Cerberus personnel had decided to make the troublesome turian disappear…maybe because of the grumblings and dark looks Garrus had directed at them from time to time…grumblings and dark looks which Tali, of course, had participated in as well, since she and Garrus were united in their distrust of the Cerberus personnel…

She had tried returning to engineering, but found that the problem was simply bothering her too much for her to concentrate on any of the minute adjustments that she was making to the drive core—not that such adjustments would make much of a difference at this point anyhow. She had sighed, rolled her eyes, and taken the elevator back up to the crew deck again—but, this time, she had knocked on the door to Miranda's officer.

Unsurprisingly, the Cerberus officer was awake as well. Her pale lavender eyes had widened as Tali stepped into her office, but that had been the only indication of surprise on Miranda's part.

"Having trouble sleeping?" Miranda had asked in her lilted human accent.

Tali had ignored the question.

"I can't find Garrus anywhere on the ship."

Tali remembered that Miranda hadn't seem unduly worried, but she had cued up the console on the desk in front of her anyhow.

"He's in Shepard's quarters," she had said casually, but Tali had thought she saw a hint of a smile curling the edges of Miranda's usually grim lips. "I can't tell you any more than that because someone seems to have removed my surveillance equipment."

Tali had straightened, but didn't confess. Well, not that the removal of the Cerberus bugs had been entirely her doing. Mordin had helped.

"I'm sure we both agree that our commanding officer deserves her privacy" Tali had said carefully, watching Miranda's face.

"A privacy she seems to have chosen to enjoy with a particular turian…" Miranda had mumbled, more to herself than to Tali.

And, although Miranda couldn't see it behind her mask, Tali had suddenly blushed a lilac shade at the revelation of what—well, of what Miranda thought, at least—her two friend were doing. _That _hadn't even occurred to Tali. Although it had explained a lot: looks Tali had caught the two of them exchanging in the middle of firefights, like they had been sharing some secret joke. Shepard storming down to check in with Tali and muttering (with a strangely intense frustration) about "damn turians and their damn calibrations." Garrus asking Tali whether she knew anything about alcoholic beverages that were safe for both dextro- and levo-based species. The pained expression on Shepard's face when Tali had asked about what had happened on Omega…

Miranda hadn't seemed particularly troubled by the revelation, but had a thoughtful look on her face that indicated she was making note of the information. And Tali had suddenly felt like she needed to protect both Garrus and Shepard from however Cerberus would try to use this information. Before she had thought of some suitable threat to direct at Miranda, though, the human had turned her keen gaze back to Tali.

"What are you doing here?" she had asked suddenly.

"I have more of a right to be here than you do," Tali had snapped, anger making her voice crackle through the helmet's speakers. "I've been with Shepard from the beginning."

There had been a flash of annoyance across Miranda's features.

"That's not what I meant. I wasn't questioning your competence. Obviously, if that were an issue, you would never have made it this far. I just want to know why you're willing to go on a suicide mission." She had sighed, her eyes fixed uselessly on Tali's mask as if it would give away some kind of reaction. "You're young. And that last encounter with the Admiralty Board proves that you'd be an asset to your people—whether they admit to it or not. Jacob, Samara, Mordin, Thane, Jack…they all have reasons to embark on a suicide mission. Reasons to never come back. Hell, even your friend Garrus is clearly only living for Shepard at this point, and if she's going…" Miranda had stared at Tali. "But you. You have more to live for than to die for. So why are you choosing to die?"

"Why do you care?" Tali had muttered.

And Miranda had burst into that mirthless laughter of hers that had never failed to set Tali's teeth on edge.

"God knows that you haven't made my job any easier, Tali'Zorah. Always suspicious and always trying to make things difficult for Cerberus…even things as small as debugging as much of the ship as you can get your omnitool on. These things accumulate into noticeable…annoyances." Miranda had been frowning as she spoke, but then her face had suddenly relaxed. "But I…I respect you," she had said quietly. "Everything you do…it's always for others. For your people. For Shepard. I have never been able to do anything in my life except look out for me and my own. Not that I haven't tried. I'm working with Cerberus to better humanity…but, at its heart, it's still a selfish choice made for my own sake. Something I'm only doing because the Illusive Man gave me somewhere to go."

Tali had crossed her arms.

"Are you going somewhere with this?" she had asked.

Miranda had looked away.

"I guess you could say that I…admire…your selflessness," she had mumbled.

Tali had stared at her, awkwardly wringing her fingers together. She had no idea what to say. The confession had been so completely foreign coming in Miranda's cold tones. The silence in the small office had been suddenly deafening: Tali could remember hearing her own heartbeat pounding against the front of her suit and the low, thoughtful hum of the suit's power unit beneath that. She had tried to think of something she could say to the human in front of her. Then, after a moment, Miranda had seemed to recover. She turned her gaze to Tali's mask once again.

"But this. You. Dying." Miranda had continued quietly. "There is nothing to be gained from this. We have more than enough personnel to complete the mission without you. If you die, what good does that do your people? What good does that do the galaxy?" She sighed. "So I'll ask again: why are you doing this?"

Tali had looked down at her hands, seriously considering the question.

"What kind of friend would I be to abandon you all now?" she had asked quietly.

And Miranda had sighed, as if she felt she had won an argument.

"You shouldn't just be doing this because you're afraid of feeling guilty," she had said with a kind of grim finality. "I'll talk to Shepard. We can drop you off at Omega before we go through the relay and—"

Tali's laughter had crackled through the modulator. Miranda's lavender eyes had narrowed.

"I'm doing this," Tali had said softly, taking a step towards Miranda so that she could understand how deadly serious she was, "because it is the right thing to do. Why do you Cerberus people always assume that someone's motivations cannot possibly be that simple? Maybe it would do the galaxy more good for me to live. Maybe it's selfish of me to want to die doing the right thing. But you know what? I'm okay with that."

For a moment, Miranda had stared at her, her eyes searching Tali's face mask. Then, shockingly, Miranda had smiled. It had been one of the rare genuine smiles Tali had seen cross her lips.

"That's not exactly how most of the galaxy would define being selfish," Miranda had muttered.

Tali had shrugged.

"Clearly you haven't spent enough time around quarians."

"Maybe I haven't," Miranda had said quietly, her eyes flicking over to Tali for a moment.

Tali had shockingly realized that the human was…trying to be nice. But then the moment had been over, and Miranda glanced away at her computer again.

"If I were you, I wouldn't exactly wait up for Garrus," she had said.

"Right…I guess not…" Tali had said, suddenly feeling very awkward again. And, as she'd stepped out of Miranda's office, Tali could remember wondering if she hadn't misjudged the human this entire time.

And that conversation was why, after Tali had witnessed Miranda giving her life to save her sister a year later, Tali had gotten herself drunk for the first and—thankfully—only time in her life. She'd felt more saddened by Miranda's death than many of the others during the War. And there had been so many. Sometimes respecting someone was better than liking them.

The fact that Tali was here now—defending the aliens she cared about rather than at home defending her people—proved to herself that she had learned to be selfish. And, in turn, Miranda's last act—dying to save her clone sister—had proved that she had learned to be selfless.

Sometimes it astounded Tali what strange pirouettes the galaxy did in order to balance things out.

"Since you said you talked when you're nervous," Adrienna said quietly, breaking Tali out of her thoughts, "I'm assuming that you're not nervous."

Tali chuckled.

"Though," Adrienna continued muttering, "if something doesn't happen soon, I'll admit that I'm more likely to die of boredom than some secret Cerberus conspiracy. When do we give up and go back to the embassy?"

On cue, Tali heard Gabriel's voice buzz through the comm.

"Creator Tali, I have detected the arrival of three skycars."

Tali pulled Adrienna's scope against her eye and swung the rifle towards the building across the street. A skycar flew up from behind the building and landed on the roof amongst broken tiles and sparse vegetative growth. Then two others landed beside it. After a few minutes, the doors all flicked open: Cerberus troops, like the ones that they had encountered in her home at Rannoch, leapt out onto the roof. There weren't too many—these were just skycars, after all, and not really intended for troop transport—but Tali quickly counted off at least ten troops before handing the scope back to Adrienna. The human frowned as she watched them through her scope.

"Gabriel, what's your position?" Tali whispered into the comm.

"This platform is currently located on the ground floor of the building where the skycars have landed. Should I attempt to move closer in order to better enable reconnaissance?"

"If you think so, Gabriel," Tali said into the comm. "But don't get too close. Maybe just move up a floor or two? We don't want them to see you."

"Affimative."

"Uh…Tali?" Adrienna said, pulling away from the scope. "A woman just got out of the skycar. She's not armed or anything, but she's talking to the troops like she's the one in charge. And then two of Cerberus troops just disappeared. They were like the one I shot at your house. You know, the ones with the swords?"

"_Keelah_," Tali swore, snatching the scope from Adrienna and simultaneously barking into her comm at Gabriel. "Gabriel, they've got a couple Phantoms and they've been sent to sweep the buildings. They're probably cloaked, so be…"

Tali trailed off as she saw the woman through the scope.

It was as if her reminiscences had brought the dead to life: the same pale skin and cobalt hair. The purple eyes. The way she stood with her hand propped on one of her hips. Even that cold smirk across her face. Tali felt her world around her suddenly shift.

Miranda Lawson was standing on the roof, ordering the Cerberus troops around.


	9. Immortal

**A/N:**

I know that this is unusually cruel, but the next chapter (an interlude told from...umm...someone else's POV...) needs a bit more work before it's ready to post. So it may not be up on Friday. Many, many apologies. Monday at the latest, though! Promise!

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**Chapter 9: Immortal**

And then reason kicked in.

Tali realized that the woman was far too young to be Miranda. She remembered that Miranda mentioned once how her genetic modifications would have made her age slower than the average human, but this woman was even younger than Miranda had been when Tali had known her. Tali guessed that she wasn't even thirty years old yet—too young for her to even be Miranda's sister, Oriana. It was possible, Tali supposed, that she had been given some kind of age-related treatment, but Tali doubted it…only because there was a much simpler explanation.

It made sense that Miranda and Oriana weren't the only clones that Henry Lawson had created.

"What is it?" Adrienna asked.

"That human on the roof. She's…a clone."

"What?"

"A clone. Of a woman who once worked with Shepard. She was—"

But before Tali could finish, she caught a shimmer at the corner of her vision.

Tali wheeled away, hefted her shotgun into her hands, and fired.

Tali saw the shimmer stagger backwards for a second, towards the far edge of the roof where the only ladder was. Tali fired again and, this time, there was the sharp smell of frying circuits as the Phantom's barrier flickered and shattered, simultaneously frying her cloaking device, although probably only temporarily. The Phantom shimmered into view, poised at the far edge of the roof. Her blank mask was completely expressionless as the Phantom raised her sword, preparing to launch herself across the roof at Adrienna.

Adrienna was frozen, staring at the Phantom in shock at its sudden appearance. Tali realized that the human was acting far too much like a sniper. Snipers always believed themselves invulnerable as long as they stayed within their nests and, once those nests were inevitably breached, they wouldn't have any idea what to do. It had been the same with Garrus, Tali remembered. Close quarters had never been his thing either.

But that was why Tali had brought her shotgun.

Tali charged between the Phantom and Adrienna. The sword caught against the length of her shotgun, sparks flying as metal met metal. Tali was pushed down to the roof, onto her back, by the pure force of the sword's downward slice. The faceless Phantom pulled the sword away, wrenching it out of the casing on the shotgun, and preparing to spin away.

But Tali wasn't about to give her the chance to re-cloak. She dropped her shotgun and then grabbed the Phantom around her wrist—not her sword-hand, but the one that Tali remembered usually housed a gun. Tali concentrated and reached out with the network. There was nothing in the Phantom's mind to which Tali could connect—which meant either the Cerberus monstrosities had been passed over with the Synthesis effects or they had found some way to firewall themselves—but she could hear the primitive voice of the gun. Tali sent out a burst of binary that overloaded its systems and the Phantom jerked suddenly as her own arm backfired, blowing cybernetic components onto Tali. The Phantom twitched, but did not even glance down at the ragged ends of the wires dangling from the stub of her elbow. Instead, she raised the sword again, preparing for another one-handed slice downwards onto Tali.

Then, blood splattered as shots from Adrienna's rifle rang out. The sound was deafening to Tali at this close a range, and she longingly thought of the audio dampeners she'd once had in her suit. The Phantom drew back, giving Tali the opening she needed: she pulled her knees up to her chest, simultaneously kicking the Phantom away and pulling out the knife Tali had strapped to her calf. Tali slashed upwards.

And then the Phantom split open in a mixture of guts and blood and circuitry. Tali rolled away as the Phantom buckled at the knees, collapsing onto the roof's broken tiles.

Tali stared down at the body, astounded at what she had done, but also understanding—instantly—that there was something wrong with these Cerberus troops. During the War, engaging a Phantom in melee had been tantamount to suicide. She could tell now that these troops—and probably the ones who had attacked on Rannoch as well—were much weaker than they had once been. A mystery that Tali was certain she could solve with the right information.

"Keep an eye on the roof," she instructed Adrienna.

Tali dropped to her knees, knife still in hand as a precaution, and she tore the mask away from the Phantom's flesh. She was startled to find that there were four eyes beneath that mask: two were obviously artificially, glowing crimson with infrared light. But the other two eyes were green—and very human. Tali stared into the Phantom's face. When fighting them, it was easy to forget that most of Cerberus's ground troopers had been made from unwilling test subjects at places like Sanctuary. Now, looking into this woman's face—though she was barely a woman anymore—it was hard to forget.

"We…we need the voice…" the Phantom gurgled, her electronic voice lisping with static. "We need her to bring the voice back. She is immortal. And the voice. The voice must be immortal too. We need it back…we need…immortal…the voice…" Then, the Phantom's eyes suddenly widened and the pitch of her voice became frantic and, somehow, more human. "…I…Please…I….Oh God, I had a son. I had a son and…I…"

The Phantom fell still. Tali stared for a moment. Then, she carefully closed the woman's lids over her bright green eyes. A uniquely human custom. Quarians hadn't really much cared, what with the suits and all. And turians and krogan left the eyes open, so that the corpse could be on its guard for the afterlife. But Tali found that there was something both powerful and pathetic in how humans refused to look death in its eyes: instead indulging in the strange fantasy that death was just a deeper kind of sleep from which everyone could someday wake.

Adrienna's voice stirred Tali from her thoughts.

"They've noticed that something's happened," Adrienna said, peering into the scope. "That woman...the clone...doesn't look happy. She's sending…well, everyone but herself and maybe two of the troopers over to our position."

"Excellent," Tali said, rolling her eyes. She realized she shouldn't have been surprised that things had gone so horribly wrong. She activated her comm. "Gabriel, our position has been compromised. We need to leave."

There was a pause—a pause just long enough to set Tali's instincts on edge—before Gabriel's voice crackled through the comm.

"There is a…problem, Creator Tali."

Tali turned up the volume on the comm. Gabriel's tones were barely audible and Tali realized he was struggling not to be overheard. She wondered just how close he'd gotten to the Miranda clone and her remaining two guards.

"A problem?"

"There is another heat signature on approach to the roof. Armored and heavily armed. I am…unclear…what its motivations are, but it appears to be taking advantage of the distraction you provided to move towards the Cerberus leader. I am currently engaged in pursuit."

Gunfire rang out from across the street. Startled, Adrienna jerked and peered into her scope.

"Tali," she called back. "Someone just took out the two troopers left on the other roof. There's someone else here."

Tali didn't know who the other shooter could be. She didn't know who else could have found the datapad—except Tiersa, but the description from Gabriel didn't seem to match that of an adolescent asari biotic. Confused, Tali paced over to Adrienna's side of the roof and looked through the scope of the Mantis. She couldn't see Gabriel—which was good, she supposed, since it meant he was still hidden. But she could see chaos erupting on the rooftop across the street. Another round of gunfire swept across the roof, finishing off one of the troopers that had been reaching for his weapon. The Miranda clone dived behind one of the skycars, surrounding herself in a biotic barrier, as a shot almost grazed her head. Tali couldn't tell where the shots were coming from, but she could tell that they were intended to kill.

Tali knew that the clone had to know what was going on with Tiersa. And, given that she was a Lawson, Tali also felt like it was likely she was the impetus behind the search for Tiersa and could even possibly be the organizing force for what was now left of Cerberus. Perhaps the clone had even been responsible for Cerberus's connection to the Alliance. And, even if she wasn't at the head of the search for Tiersa, if the clone was half as well informed as Miranda had been, she would know everything that was going on. She could answer all their questions.

But not if she was dead.

And, as another bullet ricocheted off the woman's barrier, Tali realized that whoever it was that was firing on the clone intended to kill her without stopping to ask questions first.

"Gabriel," Tali hissed into the comm, "whatever you do, don't let it kill her. We need her alive."

"Affirmative."

And then there was a blue eruption of biotics from across the street.

"That was Gabriel. What's going on?" Adrienna asked, panic rising in her voice.

But Tali didn't have time to answer because a round of bullets suddenly burst against her suit's shields. She dove behind the edge of the roof as Adrienna cursed, swinging the Mantis around to behind her. Tali motioned her to be quiet and then, carefully peered out over the edge of the roof behind them, looking down to the base of the ladder. A group of Cerberus assault troopers were clustered there, and Tali just managed to pull her head back before they raised their guns and sent off another round of bullets.

Tali cursed under her breath, exchanging an anxious look with Adrienna. Their way down the roof was now cut off. Over Adrienna's shoulder, Tali could still see the blue flashes of Gabriel's biotics, but they could only pray that he could handle it on his own for a moment. They could no longer help the geth until they could help themselves.

Adrienna ducked down as bullet shot by her head: this time, from the other side of the roof from the ladder. She looked with her scope over the edge, fired off a shot, and then turned to stare at Tali. Her eyes were burning green with the Synthesis's unholy light, but Tali could see the fear there as well.

And then Tali remembered that it was her own responsibility to get them all out of this alive.

"Adrienna, you handle the troopers firing from your side. It's just target practise. Take your time. Pick them off. I'll get the ones at the ladder. As soon as my side is clear, we're making a break across the street for Gabriel's position. Understood?"

Adrienna nodded, the fear in her eyes already receding, driven back by the ferocity of Tali's confidence. Then, the human dropped down to her stomach and networked with her rifle all in one smooth motion. Only a second later, she started firing. Tali turned around and crept over to the other side of the roof, positioning herself at the top of the ladder while Adrienna continued to take potshots at the troops approaching from the street.

One of the assault troopers was already halfway up the ladder. Tali pulled the trigger on her shotgun before he even looked up: the body landed at the bottom of the ladder and perhaps four other troopers jumped back, startled, at their comrade's sudden and fatal appearance at their feet. Then they looked up, saw Tali, and started firing.

Tali ducked back behind the edge of the roof and, instead of firing, cued up her omnitool. Her little drone appeared in front of her, buzzing conversationally before whipping around the corner of the roof. Tali had to close her eyes, concentrating on controlling the drone in a way that hadn't been possible before the Synthesis. She could actual see what the drone was seeing: the sheen in the troopers' visors as they cried out in surprise at the drone's appearance, the brief flicker of almost-pain as their bullets punctured through the light streams composing the drone. The drone wouldn't last long, but it didn't have to: as soon as she felt the drone's pulsing presence spark and die, Tali's eyes shot open and she fired her shotgun several times into the face of the trooper closest to the bottom of the ladder. Soundlessly, he collapsed.

"Damn it!" Adrienna cried from the other side of the roof. "Gabriel's down."

Tali cursed.

"We'll never clear the ladder in time. I'm going after him," Adrienna said, standing up on the rooftop, casually ducking a few bullets that whizzed towards her and letting her armor's shields absorb a few more. She raised her scope to her eye as sparks shimmied down along the circuitry on her arm and along her rifle. She breathed out, pulled the trigger, and the bullets abruptly stopped.

"Adrienna, get down!" Tali hissed, frantically trying to keep an eye on the human while the other was trained on the remaining two troopers trying to scale the ladder.

Tali tried to give Adrienna her sternest glare, but the human just met her bright gaze with a furrowed stare of her own.

"Tali, that thing is killing him. I won't let Gabriel die."

And the young human leapt off the other side of the roof.

"Adrienna!"

Tali's scream split the air. Forgetting momentarily the troops at the bottom of the ladder, Tali stormed across to the other side of the roof. She looked down to see Adrienna scaling down the outside of the building. There were still at least two more troopers in the street who were now taking potshots at the human as she climbed down two storeys along the ledges of broken windows.

Tali let off a string of some of the least-translatable quarian curses ever recorded in the history of her civilization. And then she directed a drone towards the remaining three troopers firing in Adrienna's direction, hoping to distract them long enough for her to make it down the building and into cover. As two more troopers rounded the corner, Tali realized that Adrienna's stunt had led the troopers away from the ladder and back into the street. Several bullets ricocheted off the shield generated by Adrienna's armor, but she ignored the distraction and continued swinging her long arms and legs from ledge to ledge, fingers scrabbling for nooks among the aged concrete. It wasn't difficult to forget that humans' evolutionary ancestor was something that resembled a pyjak, Tali thought.

Tali was only half-concentrating on the drone, but she was pleased that it managed to take down one of the troopers. She leaned over the roof and pulled the trigger on her shotgun. She was hopelessly out of range, but the shot was enough to turn the attention of the troopers away from Adrienna's vulnerable climb down the side of the building.

Then, just as her shields were beginning to flicker, Adrienna jumped the last section, landing with an awkward shoulder roll amongst the broken crates and shattered concrete. As she ducked behind cover, Tali heard the Mantis sing out with another shot: one of the troopers doubled over, clutching his gut. And another's head suddenly erupted in a shower of blood and broken wires.

Two more. And Tali couldn't do much good out here. She barely had enough charge for another drone, but she sent it down to help Adrienna anyhow, hoping it would at least pick away at the troopers' defenses.

Tali raced to the other side of the roof, to the side with the ladder, scrambling down and praying that Adrienna would at least wait for her before she stormed across the open ground of the street to the other building. Her prayers were all in vain though. As she rounded the building and moved out into the street, she saw the two bodies of the remaining assault troopers bleeding out onto the ground—and Adrienna's retreating back as she disappeared into the shadowy doorway of the building.

Then, the sound of engines split the air. Tali looked up. One of the skycars was taking off—and she could no longer see the clone or Gabriel.

Tali ran across the street, even though she knew she couldn't keep up with the human. As she scrambled up four flights of stairs through the abandoned building, she tried not to see the evidence littered around her that this had once been a merc hide-out: burnt-out heat sinks, empty bottles, datapads with shattered screens. There was a loud crash somewhere up above her that shook the entire building, but all Tali could do was quicken her pace. She tried not to think about what it must have like for Adrienna, at ten-years-old, to be imprisoned here. She tried not to think about how the street she had just sprinted across had been the site of Garrus's last stand.

She just hoped it wouldn't be the site of his daughter's last stand as well.

Tali pushed the door to the roof open and was assaulted by a wave of chemical fumes and smoke. The skycar she'd seen take off had crashed: its nose crushed against the tiles and its engines burning. She could see the clone staggering away from the wreck, coughing red blood onto her feet. She was making her way towards one of the other skycars: her mouth was drawn in tight line across her face. Now that she was closer, Tali could see how the clone was an exact copy of Miranda, right down to the grim determination still flickering in her lavender eyes.

Shots rang out.

But the clone didn't even stop as she waved a biotic barrier into existence in front of her, the blue light smudged in the smoke. Her eyes were only for the skycar just a few paces away. Tali looked for the source of the bullets and saw a heavily-armored figure walking across the roof. The smoke from the burning skycar obscured her vision, so Tali could only make out the vague outline of the figure as it fired its assault rifle again. This time, the clone's barrier flickered and died. Tali knew that she was too far away across the roof. She knew that there was nothing she could do to stop any hope they had of finding Tiersa from dying with the clone. Tali knew that the clone couldn't possibly make it to the skycar before the shooter finished her off.

The shooter knew it too. There was something cruel in the way the figure raised the assault rifle again, its helmet tilting to one side as it were a hunter appraising the best way to finish off its wounded prey. Tali knew that look, she suddenly realized. Turian. The shooter was turian. Her guess was confirmed as there was a sudden break in the smoke and she could see the fully-armored figure for the first time—just as the turian raised its rifle for one last shot.

Then, Adrienna stepped out from behind a crate. Her face was still and her eyes calm as she lined up her shot and, before Tali could blink, Adrienna's bullet broke through the turian's shields. It snarled and whirled around, its assault rifle pointed directly at Adrienna. But she already had her next shot lined up. Blue blood erupted from the weakened mesh in the turian's shoulder. The assault rifle clattered to the roof.

The Miranda clone took the opportunity to run for the skycar. Tali sprinted towards her, cueing up her omnitool as she did so and trying to disable the engines before she could take off. But, even as the omnitool strove to connect with the skycar's systems, Tali knew she was too far out of range to do anything at this point. The hatch closed behind the woman and Tali was forced to dive behind a vent as the engines flared. The skycar rose into the sky and Tali uselessly fired one last shot at the closed hatch before the skycar zoomed away into the cover of the low-lying clouds.

"Tali!"

Adrienna's voice was panicked. Tali whirled around, expecting the worse. But Adrienna had the Mantis trained on the now-weaponless turian and the human didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. Tali could see now that the human's first shot had been a good one: the turian was still bleeding heavily from the shoulder wound, blue blood gushing out along his armor and running off the bend of his elbow. Tali cautiously raised her shotgun and trained it on the turian as well, but he was clearly in no condition to fight. Still, all the calmness Adrienna had possessed earlier had completely dissolved: the circuitry along her face was sparking and her eyes were wide.

"Should I shoot him?" Adrienna's voice was shaking, but the finger poised around the trigger of the Mantis was perfectly still. "You said they cloned that woman. Is… is this the same thing? Should I kill him?"

"What are you talking about?" Tali asked. "What—?"

Tali stared back and forth between Adrienna and the injured turian the human held, captured, in her scope. Tali's mouth gaped open, but no words came.

The turian didn't seem to trust himself to speak either. Instead, he slowly reached beneath his armor's chest plate. Adrienna tensed, but she did not pull the trigger.

He pulled out a set of dogtags and tossed them at Adrienna's feet. Tali didn't need to read them to know that Shepard's name would be engraved into the cold metal discs. As both she and Adrienna stared at the dogtags lying on the roof, the turian tilted his head and Tali was sure that, despite the fact he was bleeding out from his shoulder, Garrus Vakarian was giving them a turian grin from beneath his helmet. Adrienna let the Mantis fall, limply, to her side.

"Dad?" she whispered.


	10. Interlude: Just Like Old Times

**A/N:**

Double-length chapter today...you win! Timeline-wise, I should probably note that this chapter takes place immediately following the events of the prologue (so that's about a month before the events at the end of chapter 9).

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**Interlude: Chapter 10: Just Like Old Times**

"Damn it," Garrus said, his voice a strange mixture of anger and relief. "Why couldn't you have done this years ago?"

"If I had known you were here," Liara said calmly, stepping through the door of Garrus's cell, "I would have."

Out of the corner of her eye, Liara saw one of the guards she had supposedly incapacitated lift his head and start to crawl towards his SMG. But Garrus had noticed too, and he sprinted across the cell. Liara flicked another round of biotics out from her palms and let the burning blue energy do its work on the guard. The guard jerked violently and Garrus snatched the SMG off the floor. He filled the guard with slugs.

"An alert?" Garrus asked, gesturing to the flashing red light on the guard's chest.

"Probably," agreed Liara.

And the sound of heavy bootsteps echoing from somewhere down the hallway confirmed it. She strode over to the doors, pulling out the pistol she'd taken off the other guard earlier, and sank several rounds into the mechanism. She stepped back and, only a few moments later, something slammed against the door. She heard a dull whine from the destroyed mechanism and a curse from the other side of the door. Liara knew that she had bought them some time by jamming the door—the guards would have to get one of the higher-ups, perhaps even Director Harper herself, to hack it open—but she said a silent prayer to the Goddess that it would be enough. She had a lot to explain and not a lot of time to do it.

Garrus, however, was not impressed.

"Why," he growled, irritation dripping from every syllable, "did you just lock us both in? I thought the point was to escape."

"You thought wrong," Liara said simply, her blue gaze cold. "Now, we don't have much time. They'll hack through eventually. You need to tell me everything. Where's Tiersa? And how long have you been here?"

"I could ask the same about you," the turian said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

Every muscle in his body seemed relaxed, but Liara knew her old friend well enough to see the coldness in his stare. That told her everything about what Garrus still thought of her: in his eyes, Liara estimated, she was probably only marginally less hated than the dead Cerberus guard on the floor. All Liara wanted was a chance to sit down with him. They could have talked. She could have…well, maybe not made him understand, but at least given him the chance to see her as less of a monster. But there wasn't time.

"Garrus," Liara snapped, "this is no time for games. I know that we've had…disagreements…in the past, but everything you and I and Shepard ever cared about is at stake—"

"Don't talk to me about Shepard," he snarled, all pretended casualness suddenly gone.

Liara shook her head, gritting her teeth in frustration.

"Please," she said softly, trying a different tact. "Please just…just tell me where Tiersa is."

That second invocation of her daughter's name broke through the armor of his gaze. Garrus looked away.

"I don't know," he admitted quietly. "Safe, I hope. Tali and I arranged transportation for her and Junior to get to Rannoch if anything were to happen to me. Which something obviously did. I don't know if they made it, though. I don't know anything that's happened since these Cerberus…leftovers…captured me and put me in here." He sighed, and when he looked back at Liara he seemed more vulnerable than she had ever seen him before…except when they'd lost Shepard. "Liara," he said quietly, "I've been here for six years."

"Goddess, that long?" Liara breathed.

She'd been here for longer, of course, but any time she had spent here was a significantly smaller portion of her lifetime than Garrus's. She also felt frustrated with her own strategies: she couldn't believe it had taken her this long to realize that he was being held in the same facility as she was. She'd only figured it out last week when she'd heard a commotion outside her cell and a very familiar voice threatening to kill a guard with an eating utensil. She had prided herself on spending her time here finding out everything she could about this neo-Cerberus branch of the Alliance. But she hadn't even known that Garrus had been locked in a cell only a floor above her own for the past six years.

There was a sound at the door and the thick smell of molten metal filled her nostrils. Liara knew that they were cutting through the door—apparently, they didn't have the patience for hacking. It would not be long now. She looked up at the security camera and, with little more than a quirk of her brow, Garrus got the message: he raised the SMG and the camera dissolved into a mess of circuits.

"So did you have some kind of grand escape plan, asari?" Garrus asked, his mask of bravado and dry sarcasm intact once again.

It had always astounded Liara—ever since he and Shepard and Williams had broken her out of that prothean artifact—at Garrus's ability to remain cool and completely unperturbed in the face of the most mortal kinds of dangers, but then his inability to deal with more ordinary obstacles. Like meeting an old friend again. He seemed so uncomfortable in her presence—even though she was rescuing him from the depths of hell—that it was truly an astounding phenomenon to witness. She was saving him and he still hated her and, furthermore, didn't know how to deal with those two facts.

Rather than respond to his question, Liara walked over to the back of the cell, pulling up the console in the corner that provided only a few out-of-date vids and programs for the prisoner's entertainment…supposedly.

"I've tried hacking it." Garrus said, "It's not—"

But Garrus fell silent as Liara's deft fingers quickly opened the interface. As she worked quietly through the security protocols that she'd practised hacking for years in case of just such a situation, she tried not to think about how he was so much older than when they had parted. It had been twenty-six years, of course, but, still, it was easy to forget just how much short-lived species wore their age upon their faces. He'd had his blue facial markings removed, which seemed to make the cracks and fissures in the plates all the more apparent. And the scars didn't help, turning half of his face plates ragged and dull. Yet his eye sockets seemed deeper and his face more drawn than the last time she'd seen him.

Liara couldn't think about what he'd been through for the decades since she'd last seen him. She needed to focus on other things right now. She could analyze everything later. Once she was back in her cell. While she worked, she talked, trying to extinguish the range of conflicting emotions that had suddenly welled to the surface at seeing Garrus again. There was simply no time. No time.

"I'm sorry that we can't have a more touching reunion," she said in clipped tones: all Broker now. Good. She needed that. She need the Broker now to get him out of here. "But you need to escape and then you need to find Tiersa. They're looking for her."

"Why?"

"Have you met Director Harper?"

"Miranda Lawson 2.0?" Garrus muttered. "Or should that be 3.0? It's getting difficult to keep track of how many of these clones are out there. Was Henry Lawson breeding an army?"

"An army? No, I don't think so," said Liara, mumbling in that way she did when she was thinking. Out of the corner of her eye, she did catch Garrus raise a brow plate that made her think that perhaps she had interpreted his 'army' comment more seriously than he had intended it to be. She ignored him, though, and carried on. "I believe that Henry Lawson must have given the Illusive Man another clone in exchange for his involvement in the Sanctuary project during the War. The name of this clone is fascinating: Eva Harper. This is the second Eva we've met who has had some relationship to the Illusive Man. If I had more time—and access to my files—I feel like I could determine some very interesting things about his past...but that's not the point."

Liara's eyes blue eyes focused on Garrus once again.

"I don't know how much you know of my capture," she said softly.

"We thought you were dead," Garrus said. "Tiersa must still think you're dead." His voice was cold. "We thought you were killed by a matriarch. Feron went after her. For…revenge. The last message he sent said that he had killed the matriarch and her commandos, but he didn't make it out of there alive. I'm sorry."

Feron. Dead. For her. No, there was no time to mourn. Not now. They were still coming through the door. Liara blinked, tossing the grief aside for later. She still needed to be the Broker for now. Later, when she was back in her cell, she could grieve.

"The Matriach did want me dead," she said, nodding, "and, ironically, not for my Broker work. I published my book about Javik on the extranet. _The Last Prothean_. I'm sure you read it?"

Garrus gave her a look.

"No," she muttered, "I suppose not. But I attributed asari cultural superiority to the hidden prothean beacon and many of the matriarchs were not impressed. This Cerberus sect offered them my location in exchange for delivering me to Cerberus. They surgically removed my life signs monitor. The matriarchs just wanted me out of the way, to stop spreading seditious ideas in a time of cultural fragility for the asari. But Cerberus wanted me alive."

"Alive?" Garrus's mandibles flickered. "Why?"

"Because of Shepard," she said quietly.

"Of course," Garrus said, nodding. "If this is what's left of Cerberus, it would make sense that they'd want revenge on Shepard or anyone associated with her."

"No," Liara shook her head. "Believe it or not, Garrus, revenge is not the sole source of motivation for every living thing in the galaxy…just you."

"This coming from the asari who dedicated two years to tracking down the Shadow Broker to avenge a drell…employee?" His mandibles flicked against his face in irritation. "And then you not only killed the Broker, but became him. In every way." Garrus appraised her critically, arms crossed. "Except I suppose your scales and horns are only metaphorical."

"Please, Garrus. Enough." she said, looking up from the console for a moment and fixing him with a blue stare, "Just…just listen to what I have to say. And, please, listen to everything I have to say before doing—or thinking—anything."

He gave her a peculiar look and didn't unfold his arms from across his chest, but Liara took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult. She didn't think he would actually believe her…and it was not like she had any conclusive evidence herself. It was all theory. Just theories. But he needed to know. There were more voices now on the other side of the door. They were running out of time. Yet he needed to know. She turned away from the console for a moment, watching him closely as she softly spoke her next words.

"Shepard isn't dead. Not…not exactly, at least."

She flicked her gaze over to him, fearing what she might find in his cold blue eyes, but Garrus's turian features were entirely impassive. Liara had expected some reaction: even just the slightest mandible twitch. Instead he only watched her, as if waiting for her to go on. So she did.

"Her body was the only one that couldn't be accounted for in the wreckage of the Citadel," Liara began quietly. "The Alliance found the remains of Anderson and most of the Citadel's population, but nothing of Shepard. And then there were…reports…that started arriving on my desk shortly after the War ended. Of people seeing Shepard. I followed the reports at first because I…I had to. If she had been alive…" Liara shook her head, banishing her naïveté. "But it became increasingly apparent that these were more like collective hallucinations than actual sightings. The data I gathered showed that these sightings of Shepard were happening when someone was half-conscious from physical trauma or mental disorder. These visions of Shepard never really interacted with the seers. She never spoke to them. She would only appear for a moment: in a dream, out of the corner of their eyes. I tried to attribute these sightings to the cultural tendency of humans to see visions of those they have elevated to holy status, but some of the reports were…disturbingly accurate. I followed the case of one human soldier being treated for psychological trauma after the War. He would draw what he saw. I know that she was a public figure, but these drawings…It's hard to describe, but they felt so real."

She glanced at Garrus again, but he still wasn't looking particularly shocked or surprised.

"I think…I think that whatever the Synthesis is, Shepard became a part of it," she said slowly. "I think that the essence of who and what she was became broken down and dispersed as part of the reworking of all DNA. I think…I think that in a way, she's still alive. In all of us."

The expression on Garrus's features still hadn't changed and Liara was suddenly afraid that, by giving him this news, she'd mentally incapacitated him. Maybe she'd miscalculated. She hadn't seen him for almost three decade now and he'd been imprisoned for the past six years.

"Garrus?" she asked quietly, placing a hand on his arm.

He brushed it off, but there was no anger left in his voice.

"I've had dreams."

Liara's brow markings furrowed.

"I don't understand."

He cleared his throat.

"I saw Shepard. In that bar. Like we promised. She may have told me…well, she may have told me exactly what you just did. That some part of her has been left behind to act as a way to connect the synthetic and organic components that are now a part of all life." He shrugged. "At the time, I didn't really have any reason to believe these dreams were anything more than evidence that I was going completely insane," he shrugged, trying to make a joke of it, but Liara could see the darkness in his eyes. "But now…with everything you've told me…"

"Garrus, she actually spoke to you? That's beyond what I theorized she'd be capable of. I thought she'd be restricted to just—"

"She did more than that," he interrupted, staring at Liara with such intensity that she immediately snapped her mouth shut. "I was dead."

She stared at him. Maybe he'd been right about the insanity thing after all.

"What?"she gasped.

"That's why Cerberus brought me in," he said slowly. "Same story as yours: there were people from my past who wanted me dead. The mercs must have done the same kind of deal to bring me in as they did with your matriarch. But, Liara…" he said, his eyes now so full of clarity that Liara found herself believing the insanity he was telling her, just as he had believed hers. "They didn't bring me in alive. They killed me. I was dead." He sighed. "And then I saw Shepard again. She…said that she couldn't let me die. I woke up briefly—just long enough to realize that I was alive. But then I passed out and when I came too…I was here. I figure that this Cerberus sect must have been monitoring the entire fight from a distance and then picked me up once I was incapacitated."

She continued to stare at him. And, for the first time in years, he actually reached out and touched her on the shoulder: forcing her to stare into his eyes again and see the truth that was there.

"I promise you, Liara. I was dead. But Shepard…she wouldn't let me stay that way."

Liara shook her head, returning to the console. Garrus coughed.

"You…you don't have anything to say about that?"

There was a scuffle at the door. Liara could hear a woman's voice and she knew then that Director Harper had arrived. They were almost out of time.

Liara had been patient—feigning cooperation and obedience for Harper and the Cerberus dregs—but, all the while, had done what she'd done best: gathering information. About what this cell was doing and its goals. About what had happened with Shepard in the Synthesis. And now Garrus had brought her the final piece of the puzzle. She felt the same thrill she had felt the first time she had finished unearthing a Prothean relic. It had been a trivial archeological find. Decades later, in Javik's quarters, she realized that it must have been a memory shard, but one that had long ago burnt out, sending whatever information it might have once contained to the afterlife with its creators. But she could still remember the supreme satisfaction of gluing that last piece in place after months of digging up meaningless fragments. Now, she had done the same, only with a conspiracy that threatened the whole of galactic civilization.

"You're not the first friend I know who's come back from the dead," Liara said simply.

Garrus turned away. Liara wondered what it was like to be resurrected. She'd asked Shepard about it once, but Shepard had merely shook her head and muttered about how she didn't remember. But Liara always wondered if that had been one of the few lies Shepard had told her. Even if Shepard hadn't remembered details, surely becoming elevated to such a valence and then crashing back down into existence left its scars on more than just her body.

Liara was almost through the last of the firewalls. She wouldn't have access to the higher security protocols, of course, but she would be able to access as much as the guards could. And that would be enough.

"Why do they need Tiersa?" Garrus asked urgently. He had pulled the SMG up again and was aiming it at the door at the escalation in sounds from the other side. "What are they after if it isn't revenge?"

Liara tapped the final key codes on the console and felt a satisfactory rumble beneath her feet as she broke through the last of the firewalls, accessing the remote access for the facility's vehicles. Then, she turned to face Garrus.

"This facility is all that's left of Ceberus, but they've dedicated themselves to figuring out what occurred during the Synthesis event that ended the War. It wasn't difficult for them to notice the same patterns as I did. They know that something of Shepard is in the Synthesis. And their goal is the same it has always been."

"Control," Garrus said, suddenly understanding.

"Exactly," Liara said, nodding. "They believe that by hurting those closest to Shepard, they can gain control over her. There's a part of her in every living thing now. By manipulating Shepard, they can manipulate the very fabric of life itself. And her daughter…well, they believe that Tiersa is the key to securing Shepard's cooperation with the Cerberus agenda."

"Shepard won't let them," Garrus said, shaking his head. "She's not about to let Cerberus control her. She wouldn't before she died and she sure as hell isn't about to do so now."

"Your story tells me that they've already succeeded once."

"What are you talking about?"

"Garrus," she said carefully, "you were obviously an experiment. They lured you to your death just to see how Shepard would react. And the results, it appears,"—Liara gestured at Garrus—"were no less than spectacular. Now that they know what she can do, they will stop at nothing to get what they want."

"Liara, how do they know about Tiersa? They certainly didn't know who she was when they brought me in…Tiersa was there, but I was clearly the target…" he fixed her with a look she knew he must have exercised often when he was a C-Sec investigator. "Why has it taken you this long to escape? What aren't you telling me?"

"I don't know how they found out about Tiersa," Liara snapped, angry that he'd even consider the possibility she'd betray her own daughter. "If you want to find out, I suggest asking some of our old Alliance friends. Kaidan. Vega. Joker, even. They may have told someone without knowing what they were doing. This is, technically, an Alliance facility."

The second part of his question was harder, though.

"And…after they took me in," she stammered. "I realized quickly that I could do more good protecting Tiersa from within this facility than from outside it. Harper thought she was the one interrogating me, but she was wrong. I gleaned more information from her during our little…chats…than she ever did from me." Liara felt her anger return as she fixed Garrus with an accusatory stare. "And I assumed that Tiersa was safe with you. I had no idea you were going to get yourself captured. Obviously this changes things. You need to get back out there and protect my daughter." Liara glanced at the back wall of the cell. "Also, you might want to get behind something."

Liara complied with her own suggestion by leaping behind the table, exposing her back to the door that the guards had almost burned through. Garrus gave her a peculiar look, but followed suit anyhow.

She had not been idle in her time in imprisonment. As much time as she had spent discerning the Cerberus agenda, she'd also spent a considerable amount of time learning details about the facility. Details like the fact that this particular row of cells shared its back wall with the garage.

Liara felt the floor beneath her shake as her handiwork paid off: a Mako burst through the back wall, spraying concrete and metal sheeting everywhere. Liara could hear the shouting on the other side of the cell door stop for a moment in shock—and then resume more panicked than ever. She could clearly pick out Harper's voice, so unlike Miranda's cold tones as it escalated into hysterics.

Garrus seemed impressed, in spite of himself, but tried to cover it up quickly by eyeing the Mako critically as it hissed fumes from its rupture fuel lines.

"That," Garrus said, rising from behind the table and walking towards the opening that had been punched through in the cell's wall, "is not going to be much of an escape vehicle."

He pulled himself up onto the crumbled hood of the Mako, prepared to climb over it and into the garage on the other side. Liara knew that there were several more intact vehicles within the facility, any of which would serve as a suitable escape vehicle now that she had hacked the controls. Garrus paused as he stood up on the hood, looking down at her.

"Coming?" he asked.

Liara didn't meet his gaze. Instead, she had walked over to the cell door.

"One thing hasn't changed," she said carefully, turning around to face Garrus. Her blue eyes shone. "I can still do more good by staying in here than by escaping. I can gather more information and continue to slow them down with false confessions and faked clues."

"Liara, don't be a damn martyr. There's—"

"They won't kill me. I'm too valuable. And this is what I do best. I can continue to find out all I can about this new iteration of Cerberus from within its belly. But you need to find her, Garrus. Please. Keep Tiersa safe."

"This is utter stupidity, Liara," he growled, beginning to move across the cell towards her.

Smiling sadly, Liara shoved her biotically-charged fist against the door's console, forcing the doors open with a burst of biotic energy. Garrus began to sprint towards her, leaping down off the Mako, but she stepped out into the hallway anyhow. She could hear the sounds of surprise from the Cerberus guards as she suddenly stepped backwards out of the cell and into their midst, but her eyes were only for Garrus as he moved towards her.

She had hoped, maybe, to see some kind of forgiveness in his blue eyes, though she supposed that was too much to ask for from Garrus Vakarian, considering what she had done. Liara's fists shone with blue light as she flung a singularity into the center of the doorway. The two doors guillotined shut, slamming awkwardly against each other with a satisfactory thud. Now, he would have no choice but to go. To do what needed to be done. To save Tiersa. Her daughter. Shepard's legacy.

Garrus's responsibility.

Liara wheeled around to face the Cerberus officers, throwing out a singularity while they were all still stunned by her sudden appearance. She knew she could only buy Garrus a small amount of time before she would simply be overwhelmed by the guards, but, no matter what disdain he held for her, she trusted him enough to know that he would make it out.

As her singularity died, the guards pulled themselves up from the floor, reaching for scattered weapons. She threw another singularity at them, but several reached their weapons anyhow. The door behind her was instantly peppered with slugs, but the biotic barrier she had pulled around herself held.

Another group of guards was sprinting down the hallway. They practically ran straight into the singularity and several of the guards were pulled up into its gravity. They let out a series of curses and one even tried to fire his SMG while suspended. The bullets splattered into the back of a fellow trooper. Liara pulled out her stolen pistol and fired off as many shots as she could into the guards' floating bodies as they ragdolled through the air.

But then she felt her own feet suddenly pulled up from the floor and, more importantly, away from the door. Her singularity fizzled out as her concentration broke and she felt blood spring from her shoulder as she was slammed against the wall. The pain lanced across her body and she knew that she screamed. Liara felt the biotics fall, unclenching from around her torso like some giant fist had relinquished its grasp. She collapsed against the floor, crying out as her wounded shoulder slammed into the concrete.

For a heartbeat, she blacked out. And, for less than a minute, she was somewhere else. There were trees around her: all young, all freshly planted after the destruction wrought by the Reapers, all littering pink and white flowers around their feet. And Tiersa. Her soft blue hand clasped in Liara's own as they walked together—mother and daughter—through the falling flowers.

Then, the warmth of little Tiersa's hand disappeared and Liara could feel the cold of the floor against her back. And the excruciating pain in her shoulder mingling with the warmth of her own blood pooling beside her. She opened her eyes and the world came back into focus. Liara tried to pull herself up off the floor, but there was suddenly a heavy boot pressed to the back of her neck and the cold touch of a gun against her head. The guards had pried the doors to the cell open, but were shaking their heads and Liara felt her heart soar. She heard a shape brush past her and then Director Harper's familiar voice muttered a curse.

Liara breathed a sigh of relief. Garrus had made it out.

Then, Director Harper stepped into her vision. She was deadly and beautiful, her black hair shining in the florescent glow of the facility's emergency lighting and the blue biotic aura that outlined her perfect frame.

"I want Prisoner #2186 followed," Harper snapped to someone nearby, her voice harsh and utterly devoid of the lilting accent Miranda had possessed. "He won't be able to get very far in a stolen Alliance-issued Mako and I need him re-captured before he ditches it and sets out on foot. In this city, even as turian, he'll be able to disappear easily. So get on it. Now."

Liara could see the purple blood from her shoulder wound pulsing softly out onto the floor. The foot on her neck disappeared and she rolled, slowly, onto her back. Every guard in the hallway had a gun trained on her, except for one. He had cued up an omnitool, preparing to dispense medigel. He reached forward to apply it to her shoulder.

"We'll have Prisoner #5940 back in her cell immediately," the guard said.

But Harper's milk-white hand shot forward and snapped around the guard's wrist, killing the omnitool immediately with a spark of green light from the circuitry on her fingers.

"No," Harper hissed, her gaze fixed on Liara's face, "this one has clearly become more trouble than she's worth. The daughter is all we need now. And obviously Dr. T'Soni here has sent Vakarian to find the daughter before we do. We need to beat him to her. And we can't afford to waste time with another decade of T'Soni-style mind games."

Harper pulled her pistol from her hip, the cold metal lips kissing Liara's temple for only the briefest of moments.

And then it was over.

. . .

* * *

Liara was surprised that she recognized where she stood now: the Temple of Athame on Thessia. Yet she knew that didn't make any sense: the Temple had been destroyed in the War. It was gone.

"Ah," Liara said, caught up in the moment of revelation and speaking aloud. "But so am I."

Her voice echoed into the infinite shadows of the vaulted ceiling. But as she looked up at the statue that rose above her, Liara saw that that it was not the face of Athame, but that of Shepard, that looked down upon her. Liara had expected the face of judgment to look more furious. Instead, Shepard's eyes were dark with that sickening kind of sadness that Liara had only seen grace Shepard's face on the rarest of occasions. After Ashley's death. And Mordin's sacrifice. And, yes, after Cerberus had stolen that crucial prothean data within this very Temple. Liara knew that Shepard only got this particular look in her eyes when she was feeling helpless. And, for Commander Shepard, savior of the galaxy, that had happened so very rarely.

Liara felt consumed by the tragedy of it all. She looked up into Shepard's face.

"You could have been there!" she screamed, tears sparking against the biotic embrace coating her skin. "She's our daughter! I bore her and I loved her! I can remember when she was small enough to hold, I can remember how her eyelids would fall…so gently…as she fell asleep in my arms. I can remember watching her step between some fighting human children. I can remember thinking you would be so proud of her. I told myself that what I was doing only made sense. That if you died, some part of you needed to live on in the next generation. It's what a good asari does: preserves the best of the other races in our own blood."

But the statue did nothing. Liara found that she was sobbing now, clutching her arms around her ribs like somehow she could keep herself from falling apart.

"Why," she whispered softly, "do I feel so betrayed if I was the one who betrayed our trust? You…you died on us… You promised you'd come back and I just needed…I needed some way, some bargain with the universe to make sure you did. You could die on me, I knew, but I didn't want to believe that the galaxy would be so…so tragic…as to let you die on your unborn child as well. I was wrong. I was so…"

"I didn't even know."

Shepard's voice whispered in Liara's ear: close by, so very close. It wasn't a great, booming voice emitting from the statue, but instead it sounded as if Shepard was speaking into Liara's ear. Like she was leaning against the railing beside Liara on the Citadel again. As if she were close enough to touch.

"If you had told me…" Shepard's voice continued, "…if you had just given me the choice…"

Liara turned away from the haunting eyes of the statue and saw that, now, Shepard did stand beside her: the same hurt expression on her face as the statue, but this time she was warm and living and somehow that made Liara brave enough to face her.

"You had been forced to make so many choices," Liara said softly. "I know what I did was…terrible. But I didn't want to be the one to lay yet another burden at your feet. I didn't want to force you to make that choice."

Liara looked up again and it seemed to her that the statue's eyes were turning colder and stiller with every word, while the Shepard leaning beside her was becoming more and more animate.

"And," Liara confessed, "I didn't want to be the last one left alive. Do you know that that's like? To live with the knowledge that everyone you love will be ashes before you even turn another century older? That's why…I needed Tiersa. I needed to know that someone I loved would outlive me."

Shepard stared up at the statue of herself for a moment, so uncharacteristically still that Liara was suddenly concerned that there was something horribly wrong. But then, Shepard chuckled: soft, low, and broken.

"And I suppose," she said quietly, giving Liara that sly look she had always loved, "that you've gotten your wish, Liara T'Soni. You've died before most of the them. Garrus. Tali. Kaidan. Wrex. They're all still alive. And you—the one who was supposed to outlive them all—are here instead."

Liara knew that the confirmation that she was dead—dead because of a miscalculation on her part, dead and no longer able to protect Tiersa, dead and about to be completely forgotten by everyone she ever cared about—should have caused her significant emotional distress. Instead, Liara felt enlightened. Everything seemed so clear now. There were no more puzzles and no more mysteries. Just her and Shepard, here and together.

Shepard sighed, shaking her head. "You and I…we've traded fates, Liara. You were supposed to outlive us all, but now that's what has happened to me. I think…I think I'm immortal now. That I grow more and more distant from the mortal part of me, but that some part of…everything…will always be Shepard."

Then, the statue and the Temple were suddenly gone. And there was only Shepard and a field of stars that stretched around them both into eternity. This place, too, was familiar. Liara had brought Shepard here when they had created Tiersa. It was the point of conception: the place where the asari believed all things came from.

And to where all things would return when their time in the galaxy was over.

Liara suddenly felt afraid.

"Please," Liara said quietly, suddenly reaching out and gripping Shepard's arm. "I feel…I feel so lost. Please, Shepard, show me the way?"

For a moment, Liara saw the anger there. She saw the depths of the betrayal she had done to her own friend by giving her a daughter when she hadn't asked for one, hadn't wanted one. For a moment, Liara was afraid that Shepard would leave her here: alone, in the dark, with nothing but the uncaring vastness of space as a companion for all eternity.

But then Shepard nodded and even—just for a heartbeat—smiled. She pulled her arm out of Liara's grip and turned to face the white light stretching across the horizon of this place. Then, Shepard reached down and wrapped her fingers in Liara's blue ones. Liara looked at Shepard with uncertainty. But then there was no more time for fear and no more space for doubt, because they were walking into the field of stars.

And the stars were coming down to greet them.


	11. Family Reunion

**Chapter 11: Family Reunion**

For twenty seconds, Adrienna Vakarian was a daughter again: a little girl who wanted nothing more than to run into her father's arms. Tali could see it in her face: how her deep brown eyes brightened with green light, how the blue lines of the tattoos smoothed out as her jawline relaxed, how her hand lowered the Mantis until it was pointing down at her feet.

Then, the twenty seconds were over. His face still hidden beneath his helmet, Garrus took a step forward towards his daughter. And the Mantis sprang back into position in Adrienna's hands.

"Stop," she commanded, her voice cold and deadly. So utterly unlike her—and so completely like her father—that Tali felt a shiver run down her spin. "I'll shoot."

The turian—who Tali so desperately and so irrationally wanted to be Garrus—stopped and shrugged his shoulders. Or tried to, anyhow. One of his shoulders was still dripping blood onto the roof's broken tiles and so the attempt at movement just made the turian wince and then curse.

"You can't be serious, Junior," he growled, his voice distorted through the helmet's mic. "Damn it, I could really use some medi-gel over here."

At the invocation of the name that only he had ever called her, Tali saw Adrienna's fierce façade slip again—but only for a moment. She looked over at Tali, but still kept the Mantis pointed at Garrus's helmet.

"You could be a Cerberus trick," Adrienna said, her grip on the Mantis tightening. "Tiersa and I saw you die. You could be a clone. Like that woman. Right, Tali?"

Tali shook her head, struggling to think as logically and rationally about this as a quarian should. But she could feel her heart thudding against the front of her suit and questions were flooding her mind—questions that, she suddenly realized, could all be explained away if this really wasn't Garrus, but some Cerberus experiment intended to make them drop their guard. She'd already seen someone wearing Miranda's face today that wasn't truly Miranda.

So she circled around behind the turian, keeping her shotgun trained on the windowless visor as steadily as Adrienna held the Mantis.

"Helmet. Now."

Ignoring the way Adrienna's finger tensed at the movement, Garrus pulled his helmet off his head. He stared at his daughter with his ice-blue eyes. His face was as scarred as ever and the blue light that pulsed across his face plate where his visor had been absorbed into the chitin glowed in the shadows cast by Sol's fading light.

"I am not a clone" he said slowly.

And he pointed at the intricate web of scarring across his face.

Maybe it was because this was the second time a friend of hers had come back from the dead, or maybe it was because she hadn't actually been there to see the life drain out of his eyes like Adrienna had been. Either way, one look at his face was enough to make Tali believe—rational quarian thinking be damned—that this really was Garrus Vakarian standing before them. Adrienna didn't lower the Mantis, but glanced past Garrus to meet Tali's eyes. Tali nodded at the young human. And she saw the relief flood into Adrienna's muscles as she, finally, lowered the Mantis away from her father's face.

The rifle hit the roof with a clang and she rushed into his arms, burying her face against his blood-soaked armor. For a moment, Garrus just stood there, stunned. Then, he wrapped his arms around his daughter.

"Spirits," he muttered, "how did you get so tall? You're practically a full-grown human now and I…Damn it, I missed it."

And despite all the questions, despite her anger at why he had waited so long to tell his daughter…to tell his friend…that he was alive, and despite the fact that they were still all in terrible danger, Tali couldn't help but smile at the sight of the two of them there, together again. At last.

But unlike the two of them, she hadn't forgotten that Garrus had a massive Adrienna-inflicted shoulder wound that was still oozing blood. She pulled out a couple of medi-gel packs. Adrienna broke the embrace at Tali's approach, pulling away and staring down at herself. Her armor was covered in Garrus's blue blood. Garrus swayed forward and Adrienna caught him, dragging him down onto the rooftop. She propped him against the edge of the skycar and, before he could protest, Adrienna snatched the medi-gels out of Tali's hand, and started applying them on the wound with something like embarrassment etched across her features.

And, as his eyes began to clear, Garrus looked over at Tali. His mandibles twitched against his jaw as he stared at her.

"Tali," he began, "I—I don't know what to say."

She smiled at him and did her best grumbling Garrus impression.

"'Thank you for saving my life again, Tali, for the sixty-seventh time' could be a good start," she teased.

His brow plates furrowed.

"Sixty-seven? It's not nearly that many."

"Oh yes it is. I've been keeping careful track. Trust me."

He chuckled and stared at the medi-gel steaming onto his shoulder plate.

"I can't believe you shot me," Garrus said, turning back to Adrienna.

Tali could tell that he actually found it more amusing than anything else, but Adrienna was genuinely mortified.

"I…I didn't know it was you. The smoke and…and we needed to capture that woman and…and…" she mumbled, not meeting his gaze and talking around one package she held in her teeth while she applied the other liberally across the breach in Garrus's armor. "…and Tali had said she was a clone and I thought it was maybe a trick and we needed to stop you from killing that woman because we need to find out how much she knows about Tiersa and—"

"And I would have killed her," Garrus muttered, "if it hadn't been for the damn geth."

Adrienna looked up from the wound and stared at Tali, all color drained from her face.

"Gabriel," she gasped. "Tali, you said he'd gone down…"

"…Gabriel…?" Garrus growled. "Who is—?"

But Tali was already off, sprinting across the roof to the far the section of the roof where she'd thought she had seen the biotic fireworks before losing contact with the geth.

Gabriel looked just like the countless number of other geth units Tali had disabled in her lifetime. He was sprawled limply behind a crate, his head even more askew than usual and the white processing fluid seeping from his joints. It was strange seeing Gabriel like that: still and dark and looking just like the empty shells of the countless geth Tali had disabled in the past. Medi-gel had yet to be re-formulated to function for species that had begun as synthetics (though Tali knew that there was a joint quarian/geth research project with this end goal in mind), so she crouched down beside Gabriel's still form and ran her hands along his exoskeleton, sending out networking pings to try and determine the extent of the damage. It looked bad. Garrus must have torn him apart: there were more disconnected wires than bullet holes. But Tali could hear the faint wiring of Gabriel's core processor, so she knew that he wasn't dead—at least not yet.

After a few minutes, she heard a noise behind her. She turned to see Adrienna and Garrus approach—the latter leaning heavily on his daughter. When Adrienna saw the state of Gabriel—the geth's limp body was twitching as Tali now applied test pulses across his circuits—she broke away from her father's side and rushed towards the geth, her face drawn and etched with concern.

"Is he—?"

"He's not dead," said Tali. "I've just never had to revive a geth before. Usually, I was doing the opposite. It's difficult work. He'll need a few hours to reboot once I've patched up his circuit, but I think he'll be okay."

Adrienna took a step backwards, but didn't move. Garrus came up and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Junior" he said quietly. "I had no idea it was working with you."

"He," she said quietly. "His name is Gabirel."

"Sorry. He. Gabriel. Got it." Garrus said, shifting awkwardly.

"He got us through the trip to Rannoch," she said quietly, her eyes never leaving the geth. "Two years trapped in a tiny ship and he worked so hard to make sure that we didn't go insane. Making sure we got out at the refueling stations. Finding us extranet files and these little games and puzzles. Stepping between Tiersa and I when things got…cramped. He and Jona. I don't know if we would have come out, you know…sane…if it hadn't been for them."

Suddenly, she turned to stare into Garrus's eyes.

"Where were you?" she asked in a quiet, deadly voice.

Tali watched as his mandibles flicked—just once—against his jaw. If he'd survived the merc attack, why hadn't he contacted them? Why had he let his daughter believe he was dead? Adrienna's stare was piercing and accusatory. Tali wondered if Garrus heard his own tones reflected in the human's voice the way Tali could. She also prayed that he understood the importance of the question.

"Sitting on my ass in a cell," he growled.

Ah. Apparently not. Tali couldn't help it. She turned away from the all-important work of reviving Gabriel to glare at Garrus with her bright eyes.

"Stop that, Tali," he said, mandibles flaring in annoyance. "It's not like it was my choice. Cerberus has been keeping me in a cell for the last six years. I tried contacting you when I escaped, but I couldn't get through to your house on Rannoch."

"I…I secured the channel after we left, Garrus," Tali said slowly, understanding what had happened. "I'm sorry. I didn't want anyone trying to contact me or my family if I wasn't there. How did you get out? What happened?"

"Tali," he said quietly. "Liara…Liara isn't dead. They were holding her at the same facility. ."

"_Keelah,_" Tali breathed, her eyes widening. "She's alive? Are you serious?"

"Once she figured out I was at the same facility, she broke me out. But she…decided that she was better off remaining in the facility to try and gather information. To work from the inside." His voice suddenly tensed. "I told her that it was a stupid idea, but…"

"I know," Tali said, standing up and banishing her omnitool. "But it was Liara. You can't exactly talk her out of anything once she's made up her mind."

Garrus looked away.

"There's so much I need to explain, Tali. About Shepard. About…everything. But the important part is that they're after Tiersa. The dregs of Cerberus have been washed up into some Alliance research group and they're after her. I don't know if they've found her yet. I planted that datapad on the house in hopes of luring them here and trying to capture Harper. Or maybe kill her. Isn't there a human saying about lopping off the head?" He shook his head. "I can only assume that you found the datapad too? Please, spirits, tell me that you know where Tiersa is."

Tali looked down, wringing her hands.

"Garrus…I…She wanted to come back to Earth. I let her. What else could I do? These Cerberus troops attacked my house on Rannoch and we realized they were after her. So we came here to try and find her. I'm sorry."

His cold stare refused to meet her gaze, but his mandibles were flicking against his jawline in a steady rhythm. Tali touched his shoulder—the uninjured one—but he remained silent.

"Garrus?"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he growled, ice-blue eyes suddenly whipping over to her face. "Letting Tiersa come back here? And bringing Junior into a firefight? You're all supposed to be on Rannoch. And she's supposed to safe."

"Excuse me?" Tali said, stepping back.

"Dad, it's not her fault," Adrienna began, turning away from Gabriel and standing up.

But Garrus ignored her, growling and stepping towards Tali, but she held her ground.

"Cerberus attacked Adrienna on Tuchanka," Tali said, trying to explain. "They wanted to use her to get to Tiersa. They tracked her back to Rannoch and they stormed my house. Rannoch wasn't safe anymore. And I couldn't exactly abandon Tiersa to be capture by these monsters."

Garrus threw his head back and started pacing.

"Junior was on Tuchanka? You let her go to Tuchanka? Why would you ever let her go there? That place almost killed Shepard. And it did kill Mordin. And that was before the krogan were at full strength…"

"I'm right here, you know," the human in question said, folding her arms across her chest and frowning at the two of them. "You don't have to talk about me like I'm not here."

"…and the tattoos?" Garrus said, continuing to ignore his daughter, save to flick a quick glance over to the blue facial markings across her cheeks and jaw. "Damn it, Tali. You didn't get those removed? Do you have any idea how she got those? They tortured her. And you didn't—"

Tali felt hot anger burn into her face, flushing her cheeks a deep violet. She clenched her fists, leaning towards Garrus and matching the intensity of his rage with her own.

"I seem to recall that she's not the only Vakarian who refused to heal old scars. I know that Shepard told you…no, practically ordered you…to use Chakwas's medbay facilities to heal the wounds from the rocket. I know that you refused and I know that Shepard never understood why. You have no right to tell Adrienna the same. No—"

Garrus stopped his pacing suddenly and wheeled around, staring down Tali with cold blue eyes. He towered over her, mandibles flickering in fury. The primordial part of her brain tried shortcircuited, realizing that she was caught in the gaze of a predator, but Tali's fury had long ago overridden any evolutionary preservation instinct she might have possessed. He leaned over her, pointing savagely to the scars carved into his right face plates.

"I kept these," he growled, "to remind me of my mistakes. What happened on Omega was my fault," his voice had become a low hiss now, the subtonals dark. "I…deserved…these."

A part of Tali that had never really left the Normandy softened at his words. Another part—the part that had put up with years of watching her friend find increasingly innovative ways to destroy himself with undeserved guilt—only made her more angry.

"Why," she screamed, "are you always trying to find ways to blame yourself? Why can't you just—"

"What happened to Junior wasn't her fault," he growled, now close enough that Tali could feel his breath on her forehead. "You should have had the markings removed. She didn't deserve that and, you, Tali, you let her keep them. I don't understand how you could—"

"Hey!" screamed Adrienna—and she forced herself between Tali and Garrus. Then she shoved her father: placing her palms across his armor's chest piece and pushing him away. Tali's jaw dropped open at the fierceness of the gesture. And Garrus blinked, tearing his furious gaze away from Tali and suddenly focusing on Adrienna.

For a moment, the human just stood there, staring into his eyes. She was only a few inches shorter than him now—remarkable for a human female—and she used her height to her advantage. She wasn't letting him look away from her. Or from the tattoos on her face.

"I chose to keep these. The mercs did it to mark me as a Vakarian." She fixed her father with a hard stare. "And maybe I don't have a problem with that. And you know what? Granddad didn't either. He told me I earned them."

Garrus stared at her. His mandibles flared once. Then, he looked away. When he spoke again, his tone was soft and deflated.

"My dad…" he murmured. "Your…granddad, I guess…is he…?"

"Gone," Tali said softly, stepping forward and placing her hand on his shoulder. "Years ago now. He was old, Garrus, and he went quietly in his sleep."

Garrus chuckled sadly.

"He probably hated that. He always wanted to go out in a firefight." He stared again at Adrienna. "Sol? What about her?"

"She's fine, last I talked to her," Adrienna said quietly. "It was awhile ago."

"Spirits," Garrus growled, turning away, "she must hate me."

Tali could remember the last conversation she'd had with Sol: it had been after Adrienna had disappeared. Tali had assumed that she had gone to Palaven and so she had contacted Sol—with no results, of course. But the bitterness that sprang into Sol's eyes when Garrus's name came up had startled Tali.

"I just feel like I failed him," Tali had said, anxious over Adrienna's disappearance.

"No, Tali," Sol had growled, her subtonals sharp. "He failed the rest of us."

Tali had never had a brother or a sister. Population numbers had been strictly controlled on the Flotilla and, even if her mother had lived, it would have been unlikely that her father and mother would have been permitted to have another child. Tali was completely baffled that someone who seemed so much like a female version of Garrus—albeit a little less wisecracking—could be so angry towards him. Even after she thought he was dead. Even after Sol insisted to his now-parentless daughter that she was to call her by the "Earth term" of "Auntie Sol." A turian who demonstrated so much love and caring for a niece that was not even the same species as her and yet held so much bitterness in her voice for the dead brother with whom she shared her blood.

Tali hadn't wanted to tell Garrus about his father like this. She gave his uninjured shoulder a small squeeze, trying to tell him without words that she was sorry he had to find out like this. Adrienna's mouth was pulled into a sharp line.

"I'm…I'm sorry Dad," she said, walking closer.

"I won't make you lose the markings," Garrus said softly. Then, he reached a talon up and ran it across one of the scars on Adrienna's face. "These are new." And then there was that deceptive casualness in his voice that Tali knew signalled he was struggling to fight the anger again.

Adrienna grinned.

"Urdnot Wrex taught me how to charge."

"Oh?" And Garrus's voice came back to its usual sarcastic pitch. "Great."

"And how to drive."

Garrus leaned backwards and crossed his arms across his chest.

"This just gets better and better. Tali, remind me to never ask you—and especially not Wrex—to babysit ever again."

Adrienna snorted at the comment.

Tali bent down to check on Gabriel again, but it was really just an excuse to hide the tears that had suddenly sprung into her eyes. They had been through a lot today. And Gabriel still wasn't back online yet. But, somehow, the thought of one of her oldest friends sitting in a cell being experimented on by Cerberus for six years with no information on whether Adrienna or Tiersa were alive or dead suddenly overwhelmed her. And Liara was still there? Waiting? But alive. Tali imagined herself in the same position with her own children, but with no Zaar to watch over them, and she felt suddenly sick.

And now Garrus was back to making light of it. As if the whole ordeal and confrontation had never happened. But that was how Tali knew how much it had been hell for him

Tali remembered a conversation she'd had with Shepard, once. It had been during the War—just back from a Citadel errand run that had culminated in Shepard doing several shady deals with Aria, Queen of the Mercs, and, as a result, getting an army that was willing to join the fight for Earth. The only problem? That army was composed entirely of mercenaries that, only a year ago, had been determined to kill Garrus.

"_Keelah_, what will Garrus say?" Tali muttered as they talked about it in Engineering. "Can I be there when you tell him? I want to see the look on his turian face."

Shepard suddenly became very interested in a nearby instrument panel.

"You're not going to tell him?" Tali said in complete disbelief. "Shepard, how are you going to hide an entire army from your boyfriend? Or, for that matter, how are you going to hide your boyfriend from them?"

Shepard at least at the grace to look up from the panel and meet Tali's gaze.

"No one knows that Garrus was Archangel. It'll be fine. And Garrus has…other things to worry about. He won't even notice."

"Uh-huh. Right," Tali said, fully aware that her tone was not exactly befitting a subordinate. Not that she was one, technically, anymore, but Shepard was in charge.

"Tali, do you know what he said to me when we found him on Omega?" Shepard said quietly in response.

Tali shook her head. The way Garrus had told the story involved him heroically saving Shepard when she had accidentally stumbled into his well-laid mercenary trap—an account that Tali had assessed as the ridiculous piece of fiction she knew it was intended to be.

Shepard actually shook her head, smiling at the memory. But there was pain in her eyes as well.

"He'd been trapped in that apartment for days. Running low on medi-gel and stims and rations. And his squad…I saw the bodies, all laid out under tarps…But he just told me how hard he'd worked to get this many mercs after him, how it was just a little target practise…"

"So your boyfriend is an ass, Shepard. We all know that. You sure do know how to pick them, don't you?"

Shepard laughed, but then her eyes turned still.

"He was just one shot away from being a corpse, Tali, and all he could think to say to me was this…this banter. That's how I should have known how serious it was. How badly those mercs wanted him dead. How fresh the corpses of his team were. And how…how broken he was." Shepard got up to leave, but turned back. "So, no. I won't be telling him about my deal with Aria."

And now, decades later, Garrus was back to making stupid jokes when his life, or his sanity, or both, were on the line. And perilously close to falling off that line. She felt his talon on her shoulder, suddenly, as she continued to scan her omnitool over Gabriel. She felt one tear fall and splatter against Gabriel's chest plate, but she wasn't sure if Garrus noticed or not. It sure had been a hell of a lot easier to hide these things within an environmental suit.

"Why Gabriel?"

"What?" she said, forgetting herself and looking up at him.

"Where did the name come from?" he clarified. "It sounds…human."

"Geth choose their own names," Tali said softly. "A lot of them are from human mythology, in honor of Legion. And Shepard, I suppose. I think that Gabriel was the name of an angel?" Tali smirked. "So, when he's back online, you two might find that you have a lot in common. When you're not killing each other, that is."

Garrus's only response was to hmm softly and continue staring at the geth. Then, he lifted his talons from her shoulder and instead crouched beside her. He lifted Gabriel up into his arms, throwing the geth over his shoulder.

"Let's get to one of those skycars. We shouldn't linger long. Who knows when Cerberus will be back."

Tali rose and followed after him, while Adrienna trailed behind.

"So these Cerberus troops are working within Alliance jurisdiction?" Tali asked, frowning.

"I believe so. I believe I was held in an Alliance facility, but it's clearly so black ops, it's difficult to know how…infected…Alliance Command is by this Cerberus influence."

"And the Miranda clone?"

"Her name is Eva Harper. She's the director of whatever branch this is. I don't know where she came from, but Liara thought she was possibly a gift from Henry Lawson when The Illusive Man asked him to work for Cerberus during the War."

"That makes sense. Do you know why they're after Tiersa then?"

His mandibles flickered and he subconsciously increased his pace towards the skycar.

"Dad?" asked Adrienna.

"Yes," he said quietly. "But we can't discuss it here. Do you have somewhere safe we can go? We have a lot to talk about."


	12. A Meeting of Angels

**A/N:**

****First of all, apologies to those reviews I haven't responded to yet...I very much apologize. The reviews and questions are always appreciated! But I've had a drastic reduction in the amount of time I've had to work on this and I figured you'd prefer chapters to responses...I promise I'll get to them soon, though! :-)

Which brings me to the next bit of news. I'm probably going to have to change the schedule so the updates are a little less regular. I'm still aiming for three chapters a week, but they might be less spread out than M-W-F. I'll try to let you know as I'm posting each chapter when I think I'll have the next one up. And, speaking of which, Chapter 13 should be up on Monday. :-) Maybe even Chapter 14. We'll see.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 12: A Meeting of Angels**

Garrus skeptical when they arrived at the unfinished section of the quarian embassy.

"Don't you think that this is the first place someone will look for you, Tali?"

"Garrus," she sighed, "I freely admit that we're probably going to want to move to another location soon. But, in the meantime, let me convince you to stay here with one…simple…fact."

She paused dramatically and Garrus raised his browplate at her.

"Oh?"

"Here it is: real dextro food. Delivered warm and freshly cooked right to our little hideout here from the embassy's kitchen."

Garrus's mandibles tightened around his jawline.

"Yes," Tali smiled, "that's what I thought. Now. I think you have a significant amount of explaining to do…"

But before Garrus could get anywhere, they were interrupted by a series of whirs coming from Gabriel. They had laid him gently in the corner of the room, but now the geth's limbs twitched violently as his system restarted. Adrienna and Tali both rushed over to his side as the geth sat up. Although it was possible she had imagined it, Tali could have sworn that the chronic tilt to Gabriel's head had steepened its angle. She summoned the circuitry up into the palms of her hands and immediately began waving her hands over Gabriel's plates, scanning. It was a little strange to be fixing geth instead of trying to disable them. Tali thought of the medical urgency of Dr. Chakwas and found that the same kind of energy flooded into her own movements now. She had never imagined herself in the role of healer before—though, when your patients were synthetic-based, it was only logical that the engineer would be the one to fix them.

Hopefully, at least. She clicked her tongue against her teeth in disappointment.

"Your systems have taken quite a beating, Gabriel. There's significant degradation around your eezo processing core. I don't know what the long-term effects will be—there's simply no precedent for, well, you. But I suggest you take it easy for at least a few hours and definitely don't use any of your biotics—"

Tali looked down to see that Gabriel had already conjured the blue energy into his hands. He was staring over her shoulder at something, the plates around his ocular light narrowed to barely a pinpoint.

Garrus coughed.

"I'm…hmm…sorry about the misunderstanding," he said, shifting from foot to foot.

Adrienna immediately came to the rescue, positioning herself strategically between the geth and her father.

"Gabriel," she said, placing a hand on the geth's shoulder, "this is my dad. Garrus Vakarian. Dad, this is Gabriel."

Gabriel seemed to relax…but only slightly. Gabriel's eye focused for a moment on Adrienna and then, reluctantly, he snuffed out the blue light in his palms.

"It seems that I owe you an apology as well, Garrus Vakarian," the geth said. "I simply made an error and assumed that the Garrus Vakarian stored in our cultural memory banks would not be in violation of so many standard conventions of optimal physiological arrangement."

Garrus blinked. And then turned to Tali

"Did this geth just try to tell me I'm ugly?"

"He's just upset that you almost killed him," Tali said, her voice adopting her amused cadences. "If it's any consolation, Gabriel, Adrienna did shoot him in the shoulder."

Gabriel whirred, quirking his crooked head in Garrus's direction.

"This platform is assuaged by a margin of thirty-percent by this information. Thank you, Adrienna Vakarian. That margin could be greatly increased if I am provided with data confirming that the amount of pain induced in Garrus Vakarian's platform with this injury was substantial."

"I said I was sorry," grumbled Garrus, while Adrienna snorted and helped Gabriel to his feet. "And, while we're at it, I don't think my reaction was entirely unwarranted, considering I was attacked from behind by a biotic geth that was clearly trying to prevent me from reaching Harper."

"This unit was following instructions to take Harper alive in order to question her about the whereabouts of Tiersa T'soni," and Gabriel turned his eyebeam over to Tali. "Were these instructions fulfilled, Creator Tali?"

Tali shook her head.

"She's not dead, Gabriel, but she did get away."

"This unit apologizes, but believes its mission would have been successful without unwelcomed involvement of a turian nature."

"Charming," Garrus said, shaking his head. "I can see why they keep you around, geth."

"This unit prefers to be referred to by its chosen name. If this turian's processing speed is not adequate to comprehend, perhaps the turian could be replaced with a less obsolete model."

Adrienna was trying so very hard not to smirk that Tali almost burst out laughing at the human's attempts to reconfigure her face into a neutral expression that wouldn't insult her father.

"I suppose you're going to insult my mother next, geth? Spirits," Garrus said, turning to Tali and rolling his eyes. "I miss Legion already."

This caused Gabriel to buzz and suddenly straighten.

"Legion was the savior of our people," he intoned. "The Creators gave us life. However, the geth known as Legion gave us new life through the sacrifice, creating us anew in the image of the Old Machines. The human known as Shepard-Commander allowed us to permanently inhabit our mobile platforms when she activated the cosmological event known as The Synthesis. We are individuals because Legion gave us individual souls and because Shepard gave us individual bodies. We are geth. We are the children of Legion and Shepard," and Gabriel tilted his head until his light shone directly into Garrus's face and the turian had to look away.

Garrus seemed taken aback by the geth unit's sudden outburst of doctrine. It was actually a speech that Tali had heard before, though never from Gabriel specifically. It had become a kind of creed for the geth that Tali had heard occasionally recited before crucial diplomatic events.

Garrus blinked at Gabriel, but then folded his arms across his chest and leaned casually against a tapestry.

"Actually," he said quietly, "I'm glad you brought up Shepard. It's one of the things we need to talk about. Tali, are you sure this room is secure?"

She pulled up her omnitool to check all the encryptions and proximity alarms she'd placed earlier were still all functioning. She nodded at Garrus and that was all the confirmation he needed. When she promised she'd secured something—whether it be a room or a comm channel—Tali was never wrong. Satisfied, Garrus began pacing as he started his explanation.

"The thing is…" he said, his mandibles twitching, "Shepard isn't dead."

Tali stared at him. In the past hour, she'd already discovered that two of the friends she thought were dead were not. Adding a third to that list…it was unbelievable. But she could tell from the way that Garrus's eyes shifted, from how heavy his voice was, that there was something…strange…about this. So, for a moment, Tali held her own emotions back and listened.

Garrus must have seen some of her thoughts flicker across her face, because he coughed and turned away.

"It's…it's not like last time though, Tali. She's not exactly alive either. Liara explained to me that Harper and the remains of Cerberus are part of an Alliance-funded research group that has been working to figure out what exactly happened during The Synthesis. And there have been reports of these…sightings…of Shepard. When people are asleep or on the edge of consciousness. I…may have had a dream."

"A dream? Garrus, this isn't making any sense."

And the horrible thought crossed Tali's mind that she had been reunited with her friend after all these years, only to discover that he had gone completely and utterly insane.

"I'm not crazy," Garrus growled, once again reading her thoughts. "Shepard spoke to me in dreams. But told me things that I couldn't possibly know. And this…ghost…of Shepard basically told me what Liara did: that whatever happened on the Crucible left something of Shepard behind. It used the essence of what she was in order to rework every organic and synthetic being into something new."

"So…this new DNA the scientists talk about…you're telling me that it's…made of Shepard?" Tali just shook her head. "And that part of her can still speak to you?"

"Yes. And…"

Then, he saw the look on her face. He sighed.

"Look, Tali, I know how insane this sounds."

"Good," she said, "because, Garrus, I don't think—"

But then she remembered the dream she'd had only the night before. The one that had been memories of her and her children, but with Shepard standing and simply watching them from the fringes of Tali's unconsciousness: a strange version of Shepard that seemed composed of that green light…the same green light that had enveloped the galaxy after Shepard had activated the Crucible…

"There is a precedent."

For a moment, neither Tali nor Garrus quite realized what Gabriel had said. But then they both turned to the geth unit. Gabriel stood up straight.

"What?" Garrus said.

"There is a precedent for a phenomenom such as the one that you are describing, Garrus Vakarian. Complete personality dissemination has been required in the past in order to implement fundamental changes in a lifeform's foundational design."

"What are you talking about?" Garrus asked.

But Tali had figured it out.

"Legion," she breathed.

"That is correct, Creator Tali. When Legion sacrificed himself to create the geth as individualized programs, it was essentially the same process as the one described by Garrus Vakarian. However, when Shepard-Commander enacted this process with the power of the Crucible, transformation was enacted on a galactic scale." Gabriel tightened the plates against his eye, shining the single light at Garrus. "We…did not entirely understand the upload process initiated by Legion. We knew only that Legion's personality matrix had linked to the code of the Old Machines for dissemination across the geth network. It was…incomprehensible to us. But since we could no longer sense Legion's unique programs, we believed its unit was offline."

"Dead," Tali said and Gabriel nodded.

"But, as we helped the Creators rebuild Rannoch and as we rallied our forces to aid Shepard-Commander to defeat the Old Machines, we began to discover archived fragments of Legion's personality code becoming active for brief periods of time. Usually during a platform's time in standby mode."

"You were dreaming?" Garrus said quietly.

"It is not exactly the equivalent process to that in organics but…yes. Upon further investigation, these program fragments which once belonged to Legion were discovered in all geth programs. They were required to serve as a carrier and regulator of the changes the code of the Old Machines had enacted on our systems."

"So…let me get this straight," Tali said. "Legion's personality was used in order to start the transformation of the geth into true individuals. And, in the same way, Shepard's personality was used to transform all beings—organic and synthetic—into…well, whatever the Synthesis changed us into."

Gabriel nodded, but Tali wasn't done. She turned to Garrus.

"And what you're saying," she said, "is that part of Shepard is still alive? In all of us? And you've actually spoken to that part of her personality that was left behind?"

Garrus nodded.

"_Keelah_," Tali breathed.

And she sank down onto the floor. Adrienna was instantly at her side.

"You okay?" she asked.

Tali shook her head.

"I've been around long enough to see a lot of crazy things…but this…" She looked up at Garrus. "Is this why Cerberus captured you? Because they somehow figured out that you had these dreams?"

Garrus turned away.

"Not exactly…"

Adrienna stood up.

"You were dead," she said softly. Her voice was tight, like this was something she'd been wanting to say since they had first found him—but hadn't dared in case it would break some kind of spell. "You were torn through with a rocket. There were…parts…of you all over the street. And blood. So much blood."

Garrus couldn't meet his daughter's eyes, even as tears began to stream down the blue tattoos embedded in her cheeks. But her voice was steady as she stepped forward and touched him on his face.

"I watched you die," she said quietly. "You were gone. And as much as I wanted you to be alive and whole again…I knew that it wasn't going to happen. You were gone."

Tali stared at her. She hadn't ever heard Adrienna talk about what had happened in detail before. Most of the details she had gotten out of Tiersa after their arrival on Rannoch, and the asari had recited facts in a clipped, terse tone that reminded Tali hauntingly of Liara. Seeing the look on Adrienna's face now made Tali realize that the human probably hadn't spoken aloud about what had happened with anyone until now—except perhaps Tiersa. Tali felt a pang of guilt. She hadn't realized that Garrus's death had seen so…final…to the girl. The human stared at him now, waiting for Garrus to explain, and Tali found her own bright gaze lingering on his face as well. They were both waiting for an explanation. Garrus stared at them both for a moment, but then, finally, he sighed and turned away.

"I did die," he said quietly. "Shepard…Shepard's ghost…whatever it is…She brought me back."

They all stared at him, but Garrus started pacing again. Now, there was fury in his voice.

"I was an experiment. The Cerberus people hired the mercs to kidnap Junior because they had come to some of the same conclusions as the geth had. They were studying the Synthesis and realized that some element of Shepard was still there. And they knew how…close…Shepard and I were. They wanted to see if they could make her act by putting me in danger. Mortal danger, as it turned out."

"And it worked," Tali said softly, wonderingly. "_Keelah_, she actually brought you back."

Garrus nodded.

"And somehow they've found out that Tiersa is Shepard's daughter. They want to find her and do Spirits knows what to her, all in order to try and control Shepard into doing what they want. They're…they're trying to blackmail a god."

And Garrus, oddly, smirked. Tali wondered if he was maybe thinking about what Shepard would have thought about him calling her that.

"It won't work though," he continued, shaking his head. "To bring me back…I think it killed all the remaining mercs in the area. The cost…it's simply too high. It's not like by controlling Shepard they'll be able to control the galaxy."

But Tali suddenly felt ill.

"What is it?" Garrus asked, seeing the look on her face.

"No," she stammered. "I…They couldn't…"

"Tali," he said, crouching down to her and holding her by the shoulders. "What is it?"

She stared at him.

"Shepard…they don't need her to control the galaxy. All Cerberus needs is one resurrection. One man brought back from the dead in exchange for Tiersa's life or sanity or whatever they're planning on doing to her."

Garrus understood instantly.

"One man?" asked Adrienna, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"The Illusive Man," Garrus said quietly. "The founder of Cerberus. They're going to try and use Tiersa to bring him back."

For a moment, there was only silence at the horror of that simple fact. Tali and Garrus both knew that Shepard would never do it—but that wouldn't stop Cerberus from trying. And doing unspeakable things to Tiersa in the process.

Garrus's mandibles suddenly curled up in grim smile.

"Well," he growled, "I suppose it's only fair that, since he brought Shepard back from the dead, Cerberus thinks she should return the favor."


	13. New Steps for a Rooftop Dance

**A/N:**

Huh. So it's still Monday...ish... :-) Next chapter will probably be up early on Thursday. And I'm really hoping to carve out some time to respond to reviews soon!

* * *

**Chapter 13: New Steps for a Rooftop Dance**

"So what are we going to do?" asked Adrienna. Her gaze flicked across Tali and Gabriel before settling on her father. "Do you think that Cerberus has already captured Tiersa?"

"It's possible," Tali mused, "but then it seems unlikely that they would have shown up to Garrus's faked meeting today. Why would they bother if they'd already captured her?"

"Because I'm me," Garrus said with a shrug. "And I do have a unfortunate tendency to cause trouble."

Gabriel emitted a short tone that Tali considered the geth equivalent of the snort that came from Adrienna as she sat herself down on a pile of rolled-up tapestries, swinging her long legs beneath her. Gabriel went over and stood by her side.

"Possibly," Tali acknowledged, "but if that Miranda clone is the director of the entire Cerberus initiative, would she have really come herself for a simple clean-up operation?"

"I'm moderately insulted that you consider me nothing more than a simple clean-up operation, Tali."

She rolled her eyes.

"You know what I mean, Garrus. If they already had Tiersa in custody, I'm sure this Harper woman would have bigger things to worry about than tracking you down. So I think that we should operate under the assumption that Tiersa is still on the run and probably unaware of Cerberus's attempts to find her. If she's working as the Shadow Broker, she's got to have contacts. I was wondering if we tried to track down an agent and—"

But Garrus cut her off with a shake of his head.

"That's the first route I tried, after Liara broke me out of the facility. Almost every so-called agent I tracked down and beat into—" He looked over at Adrienna for a moment and coughed. "I mean, every agent I…had a conversation with…was obviously only invoking the Broker's name for clout. It was a dead end." He sighed. "Honestly, Tali, I'm not sure if Tiersa is even operating as the Broker. Back in the day, claiming you worked for the Broker would earn you a quick and fatal severance package from one of the Broker's realagents."

"I remember," Tali said, recalling her own ill-fated dealings with some of the Broker's cronies during her pilgrimage. "But if you're right, surely there are some of Liara's contacts still out there? Maybe they know something." Tali sighed. "What else can we do? We're running out of options here. Cerberus is on our trail. And they could close in on Tiersa anytime and we wouldn't even know it."

"Tali," Garrus said, lowering his voice and fixing Tali with a stare that told her this was something he had already considered, "we have confirmation that Cerberus is now operating under Alliance jurisdiction, albeit without knowing the extent of their influence. We may not know of any way to contact the Broker, but we do know people in the Alliance."

He let the suggestion hang with uncertainty in the air for a moment. Tali bit her lip. There were risks involving those that they had—at least once—considered to be friends and who were still in the Alliance. Tali had hoped that her call to Joker, who was relatively safe on his colony world, would give her a better idea of how dangerous things were for the humans involved in the Earth government, but he hadn't been able to give her any clear idea—and what few details he could provide had been worrisome.

"James, maybe?" Tali suggested tentatively. "Joker said he hadn't heard from him in a while, but we could try and set up a meeting somewhere safe and…"

But Tali trailed off as she saw the look in Garrus's eyes.

"What is it?" she asked quietly.

"After I broke out," he said slowly, "I allowed myself two calls from a public comm terminal. Just two. I didn't want to risk them tracking me down. The first was to your house on Rannoch." He nodded at Tali. "I couldn't get through, obviously. I could only hope that…" But Garrus shook his head and continued. "The second call was to James. They had used his image and voice to fake a message to me when this all began. It was what lured me away from the house so that the mercs could capture Junior. I didn't know why they had picked James. It had been six years but, still…I needed to know. But I couldn't get through to him either. When I got the chance, I did some extranet research on what I had missed while I was imprisoned. James was a public figure, but he hasn't had any appearances in years now. He's dropped off the grid completely." His gaze darkened. "I don't like this, Tali."

"So," Tali said quietly, "this leaves us only one Normandy crewmate who's still active in the Alliance and might know what's going on."

"I know," Garrus said, nodding. "Alenko."

"Kaidan Alenko?" Adrienna said, her eyes widening. "I…I've watched vids on him. He was in my textbooks at school. Tiersa had to write a paper about him once. And they just released a new vid on the extranet a month ago. 'The Last Spectre,' I think? It's the last one in a trilogy and it's about everything he did after the Reapers to rebuild Earth and…" Adrienna swallowed when she saw the dark look on Garrus's face. "I mean, he's a hero. And you think he might know something about Cerberus?"

"Adrienna, we'll just ask a few questions," Tali said. "I highly doubt that Kaidan would have opened the Alliance's doors to Cerberus."

"Can we really be so sure about that?" Garrus grumbled. "He practically opened the elevator doors for Cerberus on the Citadel."

"That," Tali said pointedly, "is not fair. He was in a difficult position and, in the end, Kaidan listened to Shepard. That's all that matters."

Garrus grunted.

Tali frowned. Alenko and Garrus had never exactly bonded. Actually, Kaidan hadn't exactly bonded with any of the crew. Except for Shepard, of course, but even that relationship had been strained after Shepard's post-resurrection encounter with him on Horizon—something that Garrus had possibly never forgiven Kaidan for, although both had been perfectly professional with each other whenever Shepard had been around. Kaidan had been polite and friendly enough, of course: never exhibiting even a trace of the xenophobia that positively oozed off Ashley Williams when Tali first came aboard the Normandy. But it seemed to Tali that Kaidan had always left a bit of distance between himself and the rest of the crew. Even though she had spent months of time with him on the Normandy—both Normandys, actually—Tali felt like she knew little of the human that supposedly lay somewhere beneath the professional front he had always presented.

"Anyhow," Garrus continued, "I already have Alenko's current location. He has an apartment in this city that he uses whenever he meets with Alliance High Command. I agree that our next move should be to talk to Alenko, but I don't want to take any chances. Nothing over regular communications, even with you securing the channels. We have to talk to him in person."

"Kaidan was always more reluctant than Shepard to question authority," Tali agreed. "If he thinks we're all fugitives and if he's been instructed to take us all in…"

"He might do it. So you'll bug the apartment, Tali, and then I'll go in. Alone." Tali opened her mouth to protect, but Garrus cut her off. "This way, you'll have eyes and ears on anything that goes on. So you'll know whatever it is that I get out of him, but, if something does go wrong, you'll still be able to carry on and try to find Tiersa. I'm not interested in talking any chances with this."

For most of the conversation, Gabriel had been content to listen from where he stood awkwardly in the corner of the room. Now, he suddenly whirred and straightened.

"Garrus Vakarian," he said, "to what role will this platform be assigned?"

Garrus shrugged.

"The same as you've always done," he said in that almost-casual tone. "You'll be keeping my daughter safe."

Garrus nodded at the geth and Gabriel's eye flaps flickered. The geth almost seemed surprised at the tone of respect that had crept into Garrus's words. But now it was Adrienna's turn. Her eyebrows narrowed as she pulled herself up from the rolled-up tapestries she'd been sitting on.

"And what about me?"

Garrus's voice still held that deceptively casual tone, but the intensity of the stare he directed at Adrienna gave him away even before he spoke the words.

"You're taking the next ship off-planet as soon as possible."

Adrienna stared at him, her eyes wide.

"You're kidding me," she said.

Garrus pretended not to notice how Gabriel's eyebeam suddenly narrowed in his direction. Instead, he started pacing.

"I agree with Tali about Rannoch not being the safest place for you right now. Obviously, Tuchanka won't work either. I was thinking Tiptree. Joker and EDI would watch you, I'm sure, and EDI does have considerable defense capabilities. Tali, I assume that you're still in contact with the geth ship that must have brought you to Earth?"

"Yes," Tali said, hesitantly. "I could contact Jona…But, Garrus, are you sure?"

Adrienna's jaw tightened. Her brown eyes lit up with the green Synthesis sparks.

"So," she said coldly, "your plan is to send me back out into the galaxy so I can be picked up by the first Cerberus squad that tracks me down? We're safer if we stay together. As a group. Tali and I already decided that."

"No," Garrus said, shaking his head, "we're not. Tali and I know what we're getting into and you do not. You will—and I mean will—slow us down. We can't afford that," he continued to fix her with a cold stare. "And I can't afford to worry about you."

Adrienna snorted and crossed her arms.

"I've been across the galaxy and back again," she said, the hurt sneaking in at the edges of her voice, "I've been to Rannoch and Tuchanka. I've fought Cerberus. I can do this."

Garrus actually chortled, which only infuriated Adrienna further. A green spark actually jumped off her arm.

"Junior," Garrus said gently, "I'm pretty sure that Tali and I must have a thousand times the galactic mileage you do. Trust me. This is the best way—"

Adrienna shook her head and gave up on her father, instead turning to look at Tali. Exactly the moment that Tali had been dreading.

"Tali, you can't let him do this. You brought me here. Finding Tiersa was all my idea. Tell him. Tell him that I can handle myself and that I won't slow you down and—"

Tali felt caught between two stares: Adrienna's deep brown eyes and Garrus's ice-blue ones. She'd thought of Tiptree before, of course, but the length of the journey, even with Little Sister's formidable FTL drive and even with the recent addition of the mass relay to interstellar travel, had caused her to quickly dismiss the possibility. And placing Adrienna and Gabriel back out in space where any other ship could come upon them…They still didn't know the full resources of Cerberus. They had to have gotten to Tuchanka and Rannoch somehow, so they probably had support from at least some of the Alliance ships.

Tali knew who was right. But she also knew whose side she had to take.

"I'm sorry, Adrienna. I think that you should do whatever your father thinks is best."

Tali turned away. She couldn't face the sting of betrayal in Adrienna's eyes that she knew was there. There was a moment of silence where she could feel the frustration radiating off the young human. Tali resolved to make it up to her later. She'd talk to Garrus after Adrienna was asleep and try to explain to him that this wasn't the best solution to their problems. But, right now, this was his daughter. Tali knew that she had to back any decisions he made.

Adrienna turned back to her father, trying one last time.

"I can fight. You taught me how." She swallowed, stepping forward and her voice taking on even more desperate tones. "You can't make me go. Jona and the ship don't even know you. They'll listen to me. Then Gabriel and I will keep looking for Tiersa on our own and—"

In two strides, Garrus crossed the room. He stopped only an inch from his daughter's face. She was tall, but he towered over her, mandibles flicking against the side of his face. Adrienna stood her ground, staring back up at him. Her fists were clench so hard that Tali could see sparks flying off the pulsing green circuitry that spiralled across her arms.

Then, Garrus grabbed her fiercely by the shoulders and pulled her closer. He rested his forehead on hers and stared into her brown human eyes.

"I won't lose you."

For a heartbeat, Adrienna was startled. Tali saw the human's fingers slowly unfurl from her palms. She stared back into her father's eyes. But then the rage sprang into her gaze once again, and she broke her father's grasp, violently pushing his hands off her shoulders.

"So why are you throwing me away?" she whispered.

Then, she stormed out of the room, snatching up the Mantis and whipping the tapestry in the doorway out of her way. Tali could hear the human slam something—either a fist or the butt of the rifle—against the wall somewhere down the hallway. Gabriel followed after her, but not before turning around and fixing both Garrus and Tali with a crooked stare from his single eye that bordered on reproach. The geth had been remarkably quiet during the whole exchange, but that one look was enough to tell Tali that he was—as always—on the young human's side.

Once she was gone, Garrus seemed to grow suddenly smaller. He sighed.

"She won't go far," Tali tried to assure him.

He nodded, but continued to stare at the doorway Adrienna had left through.

"Damn it, Tali," he growled. "What is it about humans that makes them inherently attracted to danger? It's a miracle they've survived this long as a species."

"I think it's just the human company you tend to keep," Tali said softly.

He gave her a look, which made her chuckle sadly.

"I seem to recall," she pointed out, "that you're the one who placed a rifle in her hands. And she is good. As good as you," Tali smirked. "Or almost, at any rate."

"I know that. I know. I just…" he sighed, his gaze still lingering on the tapestry through which Adrienna had disappeared. "I didn't ever want this for her. And I haven't had any say in how things have turned out for her. I wasn't here for her. To protect her from all this," and then he shook his head brokenly. "I can't…I've always failed to protect the ones I care about. The ones that…matter. I won't let it happen again, Tali," And he sighed. "I taught her to shoot to give her a way to fight her nightmares," he looked away. "I never expected the nightmares to become real."

And Tali thought that, if she was going to try this, it might as well be now.

"Garrus…I think that she might be right. She's a lot safer with us than out on her own or even with Gabriel. And Tiptree is a six month journey. Anything that happens here will be over before she even reaches there. And if things go wrong…well, then she's just waiting in space for Cerberus to catch up with her." When he didn't say anything, Tali just shrugged. "It's up to you. You're her father. But I'm pretty sure the fact that you raised her with a rifle in her hands makes this all your fault."

His eyes darkened.

"Not entirely," he growled.

Tali narrowed her bright eyes.

"What do you mean by that?"

Garrus sighed.

"Raised her, you said. I haven't been there for her for almost half her life now." He shook his head. "Damn it. And I swore I wouldn't become my father."

"I don't think you did, Garrus," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"No," he laughed, but there was no joy in it. "I guess I didn't. What I've done is so much worse. At least he was there. Maybe too much sometimes. That's better than…this. It's better than being dead for six damn years."

Tali felt, irrationally, a twist of envy in her gut. She had lost her father, too. She understood what it must have been like for Adrienna on that two-year journey to Rannoch from Earth. Tali understood the crazy loops of denial the mind performs while grieving as she searched for some way, however illogical, that her father could still be alive. And Tali understood how much work there was in finally achieving the bitter victory of acceptance. At some point on the journey to Rannoch, a ten-year-old version of Adrienna must have reached that same moment of finally realizing that her father was never coming back.

But now he had. And now Adrienna wasn't like Tali because then she had gotten her father back. Tali knew that it was only one last gasp from her old grief, but she couldn't help but feel cheated, somehow, by the universe. It had returned Garrus Vakarian, so why couldn't it have returned her father as well? It was irrational, Tali knew, but it didn't stop her from feeling it. Yet there wasn't really any way to explain that to him.

"Garrus," she said, "you've already done more for your daughter than any other father in the history of the galaxy." Tali looked away from his questioning gaze, but the purple tears trickled down her cheeks anyhow. "You…you came back from the dead, Garrus. Trust me. As someone who knows what it's like to lose a father, Adrienna will forgive you for anything now."

Garrus stared at her for a moment and then quietly walked away. He lifted up the edge of a tapestry so that he could see through the windows to the outside. Through the sliver of space, the nocturnal lights and sounds of the human city flooded into their little sanctuary. After a moment, he turned around, leaning against the tapestry and folding his arms across his chest.

"I've never seen you without the face mask before, you know."

Tali wrinkled her nose at him.

"Liar. I haven't worn the mask for years. Decades, now. _Keelah_, that makes me feel old…"

He shrugged.

"That was all through vid comm though. It doesn't count. Seeing you face to face is different. Hearing your voice the first time without any kind of electronic modulation. And seeing how much…how much you say with your facial expressions…there's…"

He coughed and looked away.

"Yes…?" she prompted.

"…there's…there's something beautiful about it," he mumbled finally.

Tali's voice gained a shade of amusement.

"Did…did you actually say something nice to me, Garrus? I'm not sure what to say. I don't think this has ever happened before."

He shrugged, but she could see that some of his usual bravado had been restored.

"Well, don't let it go to your head," he said, shrugging. "It's just that it was Javik who said that quarians were supposed to be beautiful and, well," he chuckled "you saw what he was like. So I naturally assumed that you looked something like a thresher maw crossed with a varren under that mask."

Garrus faked a shiver. And Tali was very pleased with herself for managing to glare and laugh simultaneously.

"You're terrible," she said. "You know that, right?"

"Would you really have me any other way?"

"I have a choice?" Tali teased. "Then yes. Yes I would."

"Now who's being—"

There was a gunshot. One shot only. It sounded like the Mantis. And it was coming from the roof.

"Damn it," he growled, "what is she doing?"

They rushed outside and used one of the service ladders to climb onto the roof. These unfinished floors of the embassy were fifty storeys up—not tall, perhaps, by asari or Citadel standards, but Rannoch was still a burgeoning frontier and Tali couldn't remember that last time she'd been up on a skyscraper…outside…at night…with a powerful ocean wind ripping across the roof…

She felt a momentary rush of vertigo as she looked up at the stars. The wind tossed her hair around her face, whipping it into her eyes and making them shed a few tears.

"What the hell are you doing?" Garrus yelled across the roof.

Adrienna stood at the far end of the roof, silhouetted against the dim light of Luna. Her short hair meant that she was having no difficulties aiming the rifle she had pressed up against her cheek. Tali watched as, from behind the human, Gabriel tossed something—was it a bottle?—into the air over the edge of the roof. The wind made the bottle veer wildly in the wind, but Adrienna squeezed the trigger and there was the sweet sound of tinkling glass.

Adrienna stood up at Garrus's approach.

"I'm a better shot than you."

Tali watched as Garrus stopped short.

"Like hell you are," he growled.

"I am. I'm better than you. And I can prove it."

"Oh?"

"The deal is," she said, taking a deep breath, "that if I am a better shot, you have to take me and Gabriel with you. You have to let us help. Because then we'll all know that your excuse about me slowing you down is a lie. Got it?"

Tali came forward.

"Adrienna, I know that you want this, but let's just go inside. It doesn't work this way. You need to go to Tiptree and your father isn't going to change his mind just because…"

Tali trailed off as she caught sight of the look on Garrus's face.

"Alright. You're on," he said to Adrienna.

And Tali could only shake her head, mumble "_boshtet_" in Garrus's direction, and step back to watch the show.

Garrus had to pull the heat sink off his pistol in order to use the rifle. Tali had spent a lot of time pouring over the Mantis when Adrienna had brought it with her to Rannoch. It was some prototype that enabled Adrienna to actually network with the rifle, allowing her to displace the heat discharge through her own circuitry. It was a fascinating technology and Tali's numerous inspections had turned up nothing dangerous about the process, though Tali sometimes worried why the prototype hadn't gone into widespread production. Regardless, Garrus preferred not to network with the weapon and used a traditional heat sink instead. What was the human term? _Old School_.

Gabriel tossed the bottles off the edge of the roof and Adrienna and Garrus alternated taking shots. They matched each other, shot for shot. This was despite the darkness. And the wind. Finally, after ten rounds with no progress, Garrus stood up, cracking his neck around in circles.

"Had enough, old man?" Adrienna said.

"First of all," her father responded mildly, "I happen to be _your _old man, so let's have a little respect here, please. Secondly, I was merely going to observe that we seem to be getting nowhere. And this, for the record, makes you as good a shot as Shepard ever was."

This seemed to throw Adrienna a little—and Tali couldn't help but wonder if that hadn't been part of Garrus's strategy.

"Really?" Tali called out skeptically, just to be helpful. "Shepard was the best shot in the galaxy and you think Adrienna is better? I mean, Shepard was obviously better than you Garrus, so…"

"That," he said, "was not true and has never been true. Shepard was good at a lot of things—"

"…and you would know…" mumbled Tali.

"—but I had her beat at this." Garrus finished, glaring at her darkly. "Trust me on this, Tali. We settled it. Once and for all. At the Citadel. I won."

"So I heard," Tali called back. "Because you wouldn't shut up about it. For weeks."

"Anyhow, Junior," Garrus said, ignoring Tali. "Are you ready to make this a real competition?"

Adrienna seemed to have recovered from the shock of being proclaimed as being better than Shepard at something.

"Sure," she said, "I was just warming up."

"Gabriel," Garrus said, "how about you juice those bottles a little?"

Gabriel tilted his head.

"This platform does not understand the nature of your request."

"Use your biotics," Garrus mumbled, rolling his eyes.

Gabriel straightened and seemed more than eager to comply. He brought a shimmering aurora of light into his palms—the blue light reflecting strangely off his shell-like exoskeleton. Then, he tossed one of the bottles out across the edge of the roof in a cocoon of light. It travelled nearly twice as fast as the last bottle he had merely thrown.

The green glow along Adrienna's arms and fingers pulsed brightly in the darkness, flaring up a fraction of a heartbeat before she pulled the trigger. From somewhere out in the darkness, there was the shattering of glass.

With a smirk on her face, she handed the rifle back over to her father. Garrus Vakarian made a show out of attaching the heat sink, taking his time before giving Gabriel the signal. The geth threw the bottle as he had before with the biotic energy speeding its journey off the roof. Garrus almost looked bored as he pulled the trigger just before the biotic flare was extinguished by the darkness.

And there was only silence.

Until Adrienna leapt to her feet.

"Yes!" she yelled, but she pulled her father into an embrace anyhow. "Take that! I told you I was a better shot. Told you. Now we're staying, right? Tali, you heard him say that we got to stay."

There was always something so satisfying about watching Garrus have his ass handed to him, Tali reflected sagely as she grinned.

"I suppose I did," Garrus said, shrugging.

He seemed perfectly happy at being bested. There wasn't even a mandible flicker to give him away. And that struck Tali as odd: that the King of the Bottle Shooters would hand over his crown so graciously.

So, later that night, as Adrienna lay curled up in the corner and snoring softly and Gabriel whirred in standby mode, Tali padded over to where Garrus sat, cleaning up the Mantis.

"You missed on purpose, didn't you?" she said softly.

Garrus stole a quick glance over to where Adrienna lay, but when he looked back at Tali his face was completely impassive.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Right. You're truly terrible."

"Excuse me?"

But Tali couldn't help but laugh.

"You realized I was right about it not being safe to send her away," she explained softly, also stealing a glance over to Adrienna. "And you realized she was right. But your ego couldn't take having to actually admit it to her. You let her win instead, so you'd have a way to back down without admitting you were wrong."

Garrus turned away from the rifle, tilting his head to one side as he examined Tali.

"Really, Tali. Would I do that? Don't you think that being the best shot in the galaxy would be a little more important to me than having to admit that I was wrong to my daughter."

"No," said Tali cheerfully, "I don't."

And she left it at that.


	14. Strong in Will

**A/N:**

In the words of a greater man than I...

"Sorry, sorry, sorry! Much apologizings!" (That would be a Babylon 5 reference, by the way.)

Life unleashed a series of things upon me this week, ranging from drastic to mildly irritating. And so Thursday's chapter was not up on Thursday. As penance, I shall be posting TWO chapters today. Here's Chapter 14. And I'll have 15 up in a couple of hours, pending cooperation from my router.

Enjoy!

P.S. The poem quoted in this chapter is Tennyson's "Ulysses." Of course.

* * *

**Chapter 14: Strong in Will**

In the years following the Reaper War, Tali had followed Kaidan Alenko's rise to prominence through news programs, diplomatic reports, heavily fictionalized extranet vids, and, rarely, a brief communication from the human himself at the centre of it all. Those communications had been rare—with years sometimes passing between each one—but friendly enough: "Hey Tali, how are the kids?, thought you might be interested in the specs from the Alliance's latest relay proposal" etc. And Tali would respond in kind: "Kaidan, things are good, Kal came down with a cold last week but the doctors say he's going to be okay, thanks for the specs, hope that you're doing well." Yet, for all that, she discovered that when she thought about it, Tali really knew very little about Kaidan. She'd asked, but didn't know where exactly on Earth he was currently living. She didn't know if he had a wife or kids. She didn't know what work he was really doing for the Alliance or if the migraines from the L2 implants still bothered him as much as they once did.

The last communication she had received from Kaidan was from over a year ago.

_Hey Tali, _

_How are the kids? Allers managed to pull me onto her show and I thought I'd send you the footage before it airs tomorrow. She's talking about dragging all the surviving Normandy crew onto the show for an ongoing series of interviews, so I thought this could give you some warning..._

_K._

Tali could remember how she had only half-watched most of the interview, busying herself with reading progress reports on the relay while the vid played on the console over her desk. Most of the interview was fairly mundane and told her as much about Kaidan and the Alliance as his occasional messages did. The only real revelation was that Diana Allers had apparently learned to temper her journalistic curiosity to a reasonable rapport of questions-and-answers rather than the interrogation-style tactics she had sometimes tried to unleash on Shepard during the journalist's wartime stay aboard the Normandy.

But at one point, Tali could remember looking up to see Kaidan hesitate over a question and something like pain scuttled across his features. Allers had asked him a perfectly reasonable question, but for some reason, it had thrown Kaidan through a loop. Tali had set down her datapads and focused her attention entirely on the monitor.

"What is it like being the only living human SPECTRE left in the galaxy?" Allers had asked.

And, for the first time in years, Tali felt like she could see the real Kaidan surface from beneath the meniscus of his professional soldier attitude. His mouth opened and closed. Tali caught the tightening of his fist against his side. And when he finally spoke, the words were tight and controlled.

"I'm sorry, Diana, but you're wrong. I'm not the last SPECTRE. Shepard was."

"But records show that you were instated during the last few months of the Reaper War and—"

"With all due respect, Diana," Kaidan said, his voice and fist still clenched, "that's exactly what I mean. Shepard brought the galaxy together in a way that had never been done before. But now, with the relays destroyed, intergalactic cooperation has become a relic of the past as each species concentrates on rebuilding its own homeworld and colonies. And, with the Citadel and the Council gone, the SPECTREs have also been relegated to the status of myth."

"It's strange that you would feel that way when your SPECTRE status has been a point of pride for humanity since the War ended."

"SPECTREs are currently nothing more than obsolete emblems of a lost age." Kaidan shrugged, a bitter smile playing at the edges of his lips. "Shepard was the last true SPECTRE. I may be a SPECTRE in name, but not in practise, because there is no galaxy to defend: only a series of isolated worlds focused on their own problems." Kaidan looked away, his gaze darkening. "I'm the lingering shadow of a legend. And nothing more than that."

Allers stared at him for a moment, but the journalist quickly recovered, smiling into the camera again.

"Well, there you have it, folks…"

Tali thought about that interview now as she hacked the doors to Kaidan's apartment and stepped into the darkened living space. She cued up the lights reluctantly, scanning with her fingers outspread as she searched for any additional security measures.

They still weren't entirely sure what they were dealing with, since the low-level clearance personnel file she had…acquired…from the Alliance databases listed Kaidan's rank only as "Special Consultant." She and Garrus agreed that could mean anything from "figurehead kept on salary for public appearances purposes" or "mastermind behind all Alliance operations." So far, Tali had encountered a moderate amount of security on the apartment that would seem to indicate that Kaidan was important to the Alliance, but didn't exactly qualify as high-risk personnel. The file had also listed Kaidan's full-time residence as being on one of Earth's other continents, but he kept this apartment in Vancouver for whenever he was summoned to Alliance HQ.

As Tali crept around the house, scanning, Kaidan's apartment began to reveal its part-time status through the bipolar nature of its various rooms. The kitchen was well-stocked with non-perishables. The living room was fully furnished and clearly intended to received visitors. But the bedroom was spartan, containing little more than a dresser full of suits and a bed whose sheets were tucked and folded military-style.

She felt uncomfortable bugging the apartment of a man whom she had once considered an ally. And Tali had a pretty good idea that Shepard would be appalled at the level of paranoia to which she and Garrus (okay, mostly Garrus) had stooped. Tali felt that Garrus was right, of course, about needing to protect themselves. But reciting this to herself as she stalked about the bedroom like a lowly criminal did nothing to relieve the knot of guilt that had coiled itself around her stomach. What would happen if the devices were discovered? By Kaidan or by another Alliance personnel?

There were no personal effects around the apartment and Tali wondered whether Kaidan's fulltime residence, wherever it was, was as devoid of personality as this apartment was. Tali hoped that maybe Kaidan had a real house somewhere that was full of laughing children and a loving partner and photographs blanketing the walls. She didn't like the thought that this man would keep no outward expressions of who he was within the place where he lived. She knew that Kaidan was like that…would only speak when spoken to…would only offer an opinion if permitted to give one…but, still, it was eerie to not see even a single personal artifact in any of the rooms.

Finally, Tali did find the only trace of himself that Kaidan had permitted into this space: a framed silver medal awarded for exceptional service during the Reaper invasion of Earth. There was something sacred about the way it was the sole occupant of the desk in the back corner of the bedroom. Tali couldn't help it: she gently picked the frame up, staring at the medal. As she did so, she made contact with something on the back. She turned it around and saw that there were two scraps of paper tucked into the edges of the frame.

The first was a torn page of what she thought looked like human poetry. Tali's visual translator struggled with the inked human runes, but finally the last few lines coalesced into something she could understand:

_ We are not now that strength which in old days_

_ Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;_

_ One equal temper of heroic hearts,_

_ Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will_

_ To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._

Ashley Williams had sometimes talked about Earth's poetry, Tali remembered. There was a hand-written note scrawled in the corner of the page. Tali wondered what it said, but her translator didn't have a hope of interpreting the spidery scrawl into something readable. Maybe it was Ashley's hand that had written the note.

As she gently lifted up the corner of the poem, Tali saw that the other page tucked into the back of the frame was an image of Shepard. It looked like it was probably pulled from either her official Alliance or Council dossiers. Given the way Shepard was glowering into the camera like she considered the headshot to be a waste of her time, Tali guessed it was the latter. Tali sometimes wondered if Shepard believed she could make the Council's bureaucratic red tape burst into flames and burn up simply by applying the force of her glare. She couldn't help but smile as she imagined Shepard—newly-instated SPECTRE finally given the means and the authority to stop Saren—being told she had to report to C-Sec to get a new photo for her ID badge first, before any useful work could actually be done.

Tali wiped her fingerprints off the edges of the glass with her sleeve and placed the frame carefully back where she had found it: the sole sentinel on Kaidan's desk. She was feeling more and more like this intrusion into Kaidan's life had been a bad idea. Maybe she could insist to Garrus that they call it off. But, before she could do anything, the comm crackled to life on its own.

"He's on his way," Adrienna said. "He's just left Alliance HQ. It looks like he's heading to the apartment, but I'll keep tailing him until he's close."

"Tali, is everything in place?" Garrus inquired over the channel.

Tali sighed, her misgivings now rendered completely futile. There was nothing to do but respond in the affirmative and leave the apartment, carefully re-activating the lock in her wake.

Garrus must have sensed her unease when she returned to the surveillance room they had rented, because he looked up briefly from securing his armor to give her an inquiring look. The room was located across and down the street from Kaidan's building: not so far away that they couldn't provide assistance if something went wrong, but not close enough to cause any obvious suspicion. Tali sank down onto the seat in front of the row of monitors they had acquired over the past few days. For the most part, the equipment was second-rate salvage scrounged up from a few of the embassy's quarian contacts, but Tali had managed to get some decent decryption software from the ambassador, who was now at the point that he didn't ask any questions about what was going on with the multi-species group camped out in the embassy's unfinished section.

Garrus finished with his armor and attached the assault rifle to his back. Then, as he prepared to step up of the door, he turned around to Tali.

"You understand that this is all a precaution, right?" he offered, not unkindly. "I want to find an ally in Alenko just as much as you do. But without knowing how far Cerberus is involved with the Alliance, we can't risk trusting him until we know what's been going on."

"I know, I know…" Tali said.

But she couldn't find it in her to tell him about the medal she had found.

About ten minutes after Garrus had left, Adrienna and Gabriel returned, the human sitting down beside Tali while Gabriel went and stood by the door, flexing his fingers absently as he summoned a trickle of biotics into his palm. Adrienna glanced at the surveillance screen that currently showed Garrus. The turian had sat down casually on Alenko's couch, lounging as only a turian could lounge. Tali wondered why Garrus bothered: it wasn't like that act was actually going to fool Kaidan anymore.

"This is weird," Adrienna said quietly.

"How so?"

"Kaidan Alenko...I mean, he's a hero. I grew up hearing his name over and over again. It feels wrong to be spying on him."

"Yes," Tali said. "It does."

And then her gaze flicked back to the screen as Kaidan himself appeared on the monitor, stepping through the door into his apartment. Tali thought he had aged very well for a human. He maybe wasn't in peak physical condition anymore, and his shoulders sagged beneath his civilian suit jacket like the weight of the planet was on them. He had to be about sixty years old, but there was still evidence of black amidst his grey hair. The green circuitry that framed his face glowed dimly. Wearily, Kaidan cued on the lights.

And when he saw the turian sitting on his couch Kaidan's biotics sprang to life, shining just as brightly as they always had.

"It's been a long time, Alenko," Garrus said nonchalantly. "I let myself in. Hope you don't mind."

Kaidan blinked and the biotics flickered, but he did not extinguish them completely.

"…Garrus Vakarian? What the hell…?"

Garrus got up and stretched out a hand. Kaidan let the biotics fade back beneath his skin before awkwardly fitting the turian's three talons between his five fingers and shaking, all the while fixing Garrus with a wary stare.

"I assume that you aren't here just to reminiscence about the old days?" Kaidan said, cutting right to the point.

"Some other time, perhaps," Garrus said.

Kaidan stepped away, looking over Garrus critically. His eyes lingered for a moment on the turian's face: the old scars, the lack of turian facial markings, and the bright strip from the merged visor made it hard for the human to look away.

"I suppose, in retrospect, that Joker might have been messing with me…" Kaidan said carefully, his eyes still fixed on Garrus's face "…but I heard you were dead."

Garrus shrugged, but the wariness was still in his eyes as the human and the turian appraised each other.

"I got better."


	15. Old Heroes

**Chapter 15: Old Heroes**

The tension in the room was getting to Tali and she wasn't even in the room. This wasn't exactly the warmest of reunions but, so far, Kaidan had made no move to apprehend Garrus. Tali chose to consider it a good sign that, as far as she could tell from the monitors, Kaidan was presenting the appearance of mingled confusion and caution at Garrus's appearance in his living room.

"Is it just me or is death a whole lot less permanent than it used to be?" Kaidan said, walking over into the kitchen area and pouring himself a drink. "I'd offer you something, but no dextro. Sorry. I mostly deal with humans nowadays." Garrus didn't say anything as Kaidan returned to the living room, sitting down on one of the couches. "So what do you need from me?"

Garrus remained standing.

"Help," he said simply, crossing his arms.

Kaidan smiled, but Tali thought she saw a flicker of annoyance pass across his features—probably at Garrus's continuation of his difficult attitude. Tali was becoming annoyed herself. It was obvious by now that Kaidan presented no immediate danger and yet Garrus was continuing to act like he expected the man to pull out a rocket launcher from behind his back at any moment.

"Alright," Kaidan said, maintaining his distant but friendly attitude. "I promise I'll do what I can. Anything for an old...comrade."

Tali was sure that Garrus noticed the pause before the last word as well, but his only reaction was to fix Kaidan with a hard stare: assessing him, Tali knew, as Garrus made the all-important decision of how much they could trust him. Then, the turian sighed, shifting his weight and speaking a single word.

"Tiersa."

Kaidan blinked and a guilty look crept into his dark eyes. He took a swallow from his drink and refused to meet Garrus's stare.

"I tried to tell her that it was dangerous. That she should leave it alone. But, Garrus, she was convinced you were dead and she wanted to find out why. She thought there was a connection to Liara's death. I wasn't sure...I mean, I was pretty sure that she was just searching for conspiracies out of grief. When she started tracking down some dangerous people, I did my best to discourage her. But, damn it Garrus, she's Shepard's daughter. Hell, she's Liara's daughter too. You can imagine how impossible it was to convince her to let it go, after—"

Garrus shook his head.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Kaidan's eyes narrowed.

"Isn't that why you're here? You've finally returned from wherever you disappeared to this time and you're upset that I gave her the names of some contacts with merc connections. Am I right? I figured she'd get the names from someone else if I didn't give them to her and at least this way I knew the information was accurate."

"Alenko, I don't know what you mean. I'm here because I have no idea where she is. And I need to find her."

"Wait...what?"

"She's in danger."

"She's always in danger," Kaidan muttered, looking away. "She's Shepard's child. She'll always be in danger. She's spent her whole life running between systems ahead of some enemy or another," Kaidan took another swallow from his drink. "I tried to arrange an Alliance safe house for her, you know. Found a nice human-asari blended family that was happy to pretend that Tiersa was their own, but she wouldn't have it, of course. She just had to find whoever murdered you and Liara. But if you're alive...and she doesn't know…?"

"It was you," Garrus growled. "You told the Alliance who she was. You told them that Shepard had an asari daughter."

"Why wouldn't I?"

The look on Kaidan's face was one of such complete confusion that Tali was more certain than ever that he had nothing to do with Cerberus's Alliance involvement. Tali thought that Garrus should have explained everything to Kaidan in that moment, but she had no control over the situation anymore: she was condemned to the purgatory of only being able to observe through the monitors and she was beginning to realize just how torturous that was.

"_Keelah_, just tell him, Garrus. Do it," she muttered, aware of how futile it was.

"When was the last time you heard from Tiersa?" Garrus asked instead.

"She...she sent me a vid message as I was on my way back from HQ. Just now. I haven't had time to check it. I wasn't exactly expecting a turian ambush in my apartment."

"What?" Garrus's mandibles flared. "You need to contact her. Immediately. Wait, hold on. Tali, can you give us a secure channel?"

So much for keeping her involvement a secret. Kaidan looked around the room.

"Tali's here too?" Kaidan asked, glancing around the room as if he were expecting her to suddenly jump out from behind the curtains.

Then, his eyes narrowed in on the camera Tali had thought she had carefully concealed in the corner of the room.

"No," Kaidan said softly, his tones laced with disappointment. "You've planted surveillance devices around my apartment." Kaidan shook his head. "What the hell have I done to earn that level of distrust from you two? What's been going on?"

"Tiersa. You need to call her. Now."

"I can't."

"What?"

Kaidan sighed.

"I'm worried about her. Tiersa's obsession with security has been bordering on paranoia for the past few months. She hasn't given me her location or even a comm address to reach her at for months now. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if it would do much good if she did tell me where she is. She's always on the move. And the message she sent me last week...she said she was getting close to something big. That she was going to try and get into Vancouver so she could meet me in person. Somewhere safe, she said. I'm hoping this message means that she's arrived."

"Why you?"

If Kaidan was insulted at the question, he didn't give any indication of being so, simply shrugging and giving Garrus a look of indifference.

"Liara apparently gave Tiersa a list of people she could trust if anything were to happen to her. You were on the top of that list, Garrus, but there were others as well: some asari contacts, Broker agents, a few others from the old days…and me. When she left Tali on Rannoch, Tiersa contacted me believing I would be able to help her discover what happened to you," Kaidan shrugged. "I couldn't help as much as she would have liked, but for Shepard's sake I've done my best to keep an eye on her." He glowered for a moment into his drink. "I'm not sure if my best has been good enough, to be honest."

"Pull up the message. The one she just sent."

Kaidan cued up his omnitool, but gave Garrus a wary look for a moment. Tali thought that the human probably would have preferred to listen to the message himself before sharing it with the turian—understandable, she supposed, since he had no idea what the message might contain. But Kaidan saw the look on Garrus's face would brook no argument, so he wisely played the message on the console in the corner of the room. The hack Tali had installed earlier re-transmitted the message onto one of the monitors beside her.

As Tiersa's face appeared on the screen, Tali felt every muscle in her body suddenly tense. Beside Tali, Adrienna leaned forward, her brows furrowing as she stared at the adolescent asari that, once, had been a sister to her. Tiersa looked pale and her blue eyes flickered with anxiety. Tali frowned as she saw how the edges of the young asari's eyes were swollen and purple: she was certain that Tiersa had been crying. Tali pulled up the sender's data while the message began playing to try and get Tiersa's location, but she immediately saw that there would be no immediate answers there. There were several levels of encryption that she knew would take hours to hack—if Tali could manage it at all.

"Kaidan," Tiersa was saying in a voice that was tense and heavy, "I've finally found them. Or they've found me, at any rate. They sent me...footage and...I..."

Tiersa trailed off and Tali felt her heart go out to the asari as Tiersa glanced down at her hands. She seemed so lost. But then her hands coiled into fists and were set ablaze with biotics. When Tiersa looked back up, there was a cold fire in her eyes, a phantom image of Shepard in asari form. When she spoke now, her voice was laced with fury.

"They sent me the footage to torture me, but it's backfired on them because I've traced their signal. I know where they are. And tomorrow I'm going to find them. But I needed to send this to you first, Kaidan, because you have a right to see this too. You have a right to know." Tiersa voice softened. "And please...tell Tali too. She deserves to know. And I think that someday Adrienna will come back to Rannoch and then she..." Tiersa turned away, blinking tears down her cheeks that burned with biotic energy. "And then she can tell Adrienna that I got the bastards who killed Garrus. I...thank you, Kaidan. Thank you for never giving up on me. But now there's something I have to do."

Kaidan glanced over at Garrus, but the turian's eyes remained fixed on the screen as Tiersa's image flickered away and was replaced with footage of a nondescript hallway. The only thing in the hallway was a Cerberus trooper standing next to a closed door, keeping guard. Tali could tell by the faint buzzing in the background that the audio from the footage had been stripped. She didn't recognize the location—it was so generic a hallway that it could have been anywhere, really—but Adrienna must have caught some subtle change in her father's nigh-unreadable expression.

"Dad knows where this is," Adrienna muttered, her eyes staring at the screen. "He's seen this hallway before."

The calmness of the scene was suddenly broken as an asari sprinted down the hallway, broke the guard's neck with a swift biotic pull against the edge of the door, and then proceeded to hack the door. Even with the grainy security footage, Tali could recognize the fierceness of that blue gaze.

"Liara," she breathed.

"Tiersa's mother?" Adrienna said, her brows furrowed.

It was startling to see Liara look so unchanged, especially after this reunion with Kaidan. Tali had, more than once, tried to imagine what it must have been like for Liara to feel the passage of time so differently from her friends, from the people she loved, but Tali simply couldn't wrap her brain around it. And she found that she couldn't help but pity Liara for it for being so young when the rest of them were so very old.

In the vid, the door sealed behind Liara and, for a moment, there was nothing. Then, there was a skip in the footage and the time stamp jumped forward by several minutes. Cerberus troops came pouring down the hallway, a black-haired woman at the fore that looked sickeningly familiar.

The Miranda clone. Eva Harper. She had all of Miranda's deadly beauty, but only a dark disdain in her lavender eyes as she took one look at the sparking lock mechanism and apparently ordered the troops to begin burning through the door with heavy weapons.

But, once they were nearly through, Liara suddenly opened the door of the cell and, strangely, walked right into the midst of the troopers, throwing singularities left and right. There was no mercy in her eyes as the guards peppered each other with bullets as they caught in the gravity well she had conjured.

Tali felt her stomach churn. There were simply too many of them for Liara to take them all down. Harper—who had disappeared down the hallway when Liara first emerged from the door—suddenly reappeared in the camera's vision as her biotics snaked out, slamming Liara against the wall. Tali thought she saw her friend's mouth open in a cry of pain as she collapsed onto the floor of the hallway. For a moment, Liara was perfectly still. One of the troopers came over and stood over her.

Tali watched as the guards finished burning through the doors. Harper pushed past them to look through to what was on the other side, but the angle of the camera was such that Tali had no idea what it was that Harper saw in there that cause her to frown and then start barking orders at the guards around her.

Liara stirred. The trooper standing over her reached down, apparently to administer medi-gel to her. But Harper's hand snapped out, grabbing the guard around his wrist. Then, Harper pressed her pistol to the asari's forehead, almost lovingly.

And Harper pulled the trigger.

Tali gasped and turned away. A wave of nausea washed over her and she felt the tears come.

"No," she breathed, trying not to look at the screen as the terrible images flickered out. "No, no, no, no, no."

"Those were Cerberus troops. Cerberus. And she sealed the cell door behind her," Kaidan said numbly, clearly struggling to process what they had just seen. "It was like there was something in the room that she needed to protect. What was in there?"

Garrus looked away.

"I was."

"What?"

"I…Damn it, she told me they wouldn't kill her," Garrus mumbled. "She said she…damn it."

Tali felt Adrienna's arm around her shoulder. She'd forgotten completely about the young human. Tali realized, belatedly, that she should have tried something to shield Adrienna from the sight of Harper firing off the shot. That it was something the young human should never have seen, but the shot had come so quickly and…Liara…Liara was gone…and Tiersa.

Tiersa had seen the footage too.

"This footage was in Tiersa's message?" Kaidan mumbled. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Garrus said slowly, "that they sent it to her."

"Who did?" Kaidan said, fixing Garrus with a look that said that he had now figured out that Garrus knew more than he had been letting on previously.

"Cerberus. They sent her footage of the brutal execution of her mother to goad her into tracking them down. And, knowing Tiersa, she's going to do just that. She'll walk straight into the trap and…" He shook his head, turning towards Kaidan with fury in his eyes. "This. This is what your Alliance is financing."

Kaidan stared at him.

"What the hell are you talking about? This is Cerberus, not the Alliance. The Alliance wouldn't…The Alliance wants to protect Tiersa. They arranged a safe house for her. I was even ordered to bring her in if she ever gave me the chance, but—"

Garrus's eyes were dark. Tali suddenly wondered if sending him in alone had been such a good idea after all. When he finally spoke to Kaidan, his voice was dangerously even.

"You always were a little too good at following orders, Alenko."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kaidan said.

His tone was almost laid-back, but there was something in the way his jaw tensed that reminded Tali that Kaidan was dangerous as Garrus, in his own way. That Kaidan had once killed a turian with a biotic kick during his early training. That, twice, Kaidan had been willing to go against Shepard for the sake of what he believed was right.

"Cerberus is after Tiersa," Garrus said, watching Kaidan's reaction carefully. "And Cerberus is currently operating under Alliance jurisdiction."

Kaidan shook his head.

"I don't know where you got your information, but that's simply not true. I have security clearances through the roof and I would have heard. I would have known…"

"It's headed up by a woman named Eva Harper."

"Harper?" Kaidan shook his head and there was a flicker of doubt in his eyes. "The name may have crossed my desk in relation to some research grants, but—"

"Have you seen her?" Garrus snapped, and Kaidan's eyes said that he hadn't. "She's another Lawson clone. And she's taken charge of what's left of Cerberus and is carrying out operations with the Alliance's resources."

Kaidan's features hardened.

"You must be wrong. There are good people in the Alliance. People I trust. I'll get my best people on analyzing that last message. We'll track Tiersa down and get her into a safe house."

"Damn it, Alenko. Are you even listening to me?" Garrus's mandibles flickered and he stepped towards Kaidan. "You cannot trust the Alliance. Humanity has lost its way. We need to find Tiersa and get her off-planet, not hand her over to these Cerberus psychopaths."

"It wouldn't be that way," Kaidan growled, not giving an inch. "I'll investigate your allegations, but, in the mean time, an Alliance safe house would be the best place for her."

Garrus's mandibles flicked against his jawline.

"That's not happening, Alenko. I can't let you go to the Alliance with this."

Kaidan drew himself up. The biotic aura sprang into life around him. And, as Kaidan's biotics activated, the assault rifle was suddenly in Garrus's talons.

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Tali didn't know what to do. She hated this. She hated being trapped here while two of her former comrades threatened to tear each other apart. Garrus was tensed and ready to fire, but he was waiting for Kaidan to make the first move. The human's biotics danced around him. There was something Tali didn't like in Kaidan's eyes: something dark and tortured.

"Don't think," he said carefully, watching Garrus, "that I haven't forgotten what you were willing to do."

Garrus blinked.

"What are you talking about?"

"On the Citadel. With the Council. I don't think Shepard noticed. She was probably too focused on talking me down. But don't think for a second that I didn't."

He fixed Garrus with a hard stare.

"You had your talon on your gun with that…that look I'd seen you get in your eyes before. And I knew. I knew that if it came down to it and Shepard hestitated…I knew that you wouldn't have."

Garrus didn't look away. And he didn't try to deny it.

"Damn it, Alenko. Just because I knew what might have to be done didn't mean that I wanted to do it. And I sure as hell didn't want to have to be the one to place yet another name…your name…on the Normandy's memorial wall."

"But you would have done it," Kaidan said, his voice barely audible now.

"Yes," Garrus said, his eyes dark. "Yes. I would have. But only if you'd forced me."

Tali felt like she could barely breathe, watching the two of them through the cameras as the turian and human stared at each other. Beside her, she could tell that every one of Adrienna's muscles were tense, ready to spring into action and rush across the street to do whatever it took—even if it involved disobeying her father's orders and even if it meant taking down the biotic hero of the Reaper War—to keep her father safe.

But instead Kaidan did something none of them expected: he smiled. It was a small, sad smile. The bittersweet reminiscence of an old hero.

"Good," he said, extinguishing his biotics.

Garrus stared at him, confusion blanketing his usually impassive features. Kaidan chuckled—actually chuckled—and placed a hand on Garrus's shoulder. The turian winced like he had been expecting a biotically-charged fist through his temple instead.

"Of the two of us, you trusted Shepard from the start and you never stopped. You'd think I would have learned my lesson the first time, but…" Kaidan looked away. "Thank you. It means something that you would have done the right thing. No matter who was in your way."

Garrus relaxed. And there was no doubt left in Kaidan's eyes now. He stood up straight.

"Alright," he said, "we'll do this your way, Vakarian. I'll do what I can to find out how the Alliance is involved in all this," the human said. "And in the meantime, you find Tiersa."

Garrus nodded and moved towards the door.

"Wait," Kaidan called after him, "do you know what happened to Vega?"

Garrus shook his head. And Kaidan did the same.

"I don't know either. He's gone completely off-grid and all my inquiries have turned up nothing. He had more security clearances than me. Maybe…maybe he went digging and didn't like what he found. If you're right about Cerberus and if they've disappeared him…" Kaidan sighed. "Look, Garrus. James was…James is a public figure. I'm sure they'll have no problems getting rid of a turian who's supposed to be dead anyhow." He sighed. "I'm just saying…be careful. I'll do what I can to help. There are still good people in the Alliance, despite what you say."

"Good people like Vega?" Garrus said darkly.

"Yeah. I—" Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck. "Just be careful. Find her. Do whatever it takes."

Garrus nodded.

"Whatever it takes."


	16. Time and Fate

**A/N:**

Next chapter will be up on Monday. Also, as we head towards the home stretch, you should know that I'm reworking some of the last chapters and splitting them up. So the final chapter count should be somewhere around 25, rather than 20.

I know I've been somewhat remiss in acknowledging how awesome you all are and how much I appreciate that you read my little drabbles. :-) Many, many thanks!

* * *

**Chapter 16: Time and Fate**

Tali had lost track of how long Garrus had been pacing behind her while she attempted to trace the signal from Tiersa's message. To be fair, he hadn't only been pacing: occasionally he would mix things up by growling and mumbling to himself.

Tali had just about had enough.

She understood that it had be frustrating to wait for her as she traced the message's origin. She also understood that it had to be frustrating that he couldn't even keep track of what she was doing, since all she needed to do was close her eyes and work through the circuitry directly, running her fingers over the console. But, _keelah_, if he asked her one more time…

"Have you got it yet, Tali?"

Her eyes shot open and she clenched her fists. There. He'd reached her breaking point. Her smile was deadly and directed at him as she turned around slowly.

"Yes," she said through gritted teeth.

"Yes?" he said impatiently. "Then where is she?"

Wordlessly, Tali strode over and pulled a tapestry away from one of the embassy's windows. Garrus watched as Tali pointed directly at the moon.

"Luna?" Garrus said, brow plates narrowing. "Why would she be—?"

"Yes, Luna." Tali snapped. "She's also at a research facility on Mars, in a city in the Chinese People's Federation, the southern continent called Antarctica, and some place called Madagascar."

Garrus continued to look confused, so Tali took pity on him and explained.

"The signal has been routed through several different locations. It's not a particularly difficult thing to trace, but it is time consuming and I would appreciate a little less…help…from you. It is not making me work any faster," Tali shook her head. "Maybe you should have gone with Gabriel and Adrienna to find new mods and ammo. It would have given you something to do besides torment me."

Garrus stopped pacing, apparently abashed. But now he was just standing behind her shoulder with his arms crossed, which wasn't exactly better. Tali tried to resume concentrating as the signal was routed—yet again—through one of Earth's orbiting satellites before being bounced back to the eastern coast of the continent they were currently on.

Then he started drumming his talons against his armor.

"Aargh!" Tali screamed, wheeling around once again.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Tali rolled her eyes.

"Look, I have an idea. I'll secure you a channel to Palaven. And you can tell your sister that you're alive. That'll give you something to do."

Garrus looked away.

"Look," she said, softening her voice, "I know that it's going to be difficult. And that Sol is probably upset that you weren't there for your father at the end. But you've got to let her know that you're alive. She needs to know, Garrus."

When he continued not to respond, Tali sighed and opened a channel.

"Here," she said, "if you just give me a few minutes, I'll—"

But Garrus's talons suddenly shot forward, grabbing her wrist.

"Please," he growled. "I can't."

"I know, but she—"

"No, listen Tali." He sighed, looking away. "I found out Liara was alive only to discover now that she's dead again. We're still in danger here and I…I can't put Sol through that. It's bad enough that Junior's here, but…" He sighed. "If things go sideways and I don't make it out of this alive, then I don't want to tell Sol I'm back only…only to die on her again."

Tali killed the channel.

"Alright," she said. "I…guess that makes sense."

"Thank you."

"But you really do need to find something else to do. Maybe I can find something that needs calibrating."

Garrus crossed his arms and leaned against a tapestry.

"You do understand that joke has gotten old, right?"

Tali shrugged.

"I think I owe it to Shepard to tease you about that until you die. I mean, die and stay dead." Tali raised her eyebrows mischievously. "Too soon?"

"Hmm," he grumbled, before fixing her with a keen look. "Wait, what do you mean owe it to Shepard?"

Tali smirked.

"If I had a credit for every time she came sulking down into engineering muttering about 'damn turian vigilantes and their calibrations,' then I could have paid the Reapers to surrender."

Garrus blinked. Clearly, this was news to him.

"Really."

"Yes. Really." And Tali couldn't help but laugh at the expression on his face. "Looking back, I think she was trying to get your attention for a while. But you were so oblivious…"

"Hmm. How do you know I wasn't just playing…what do the humans call it?…'hard to get'?"

"Because you're you," Tali said simply.

In response, he grumbled something that was intelligible to her translator. Then, a tapestry was pulled aside as Adrienna and Gabriel stepped through. Adrienna had several small crates tucked under one arm. She dumped their contents out onto the floor, throwing a datapad on top of the pile of weapon mods and ammo.

"There. I think I got everything on your shopping list, Dad." She looked at Garrus and Tali, who tried to hide her smirk by turning back to the console. "What were you two talking about?"

"Your father's obliviousness," Tali said, trying to state it as matter-as-factly as possible under the full force of Garrus's ice-blue gaze.

"Oh," said Adrienna, jumping on top of the pile of empty crates and letting her long legs dangle beneath her. "You could write a book on that."

"You too?" Garrus said, feigning a wounded tone. "Tali, I can understand. But my own daughter?"

"I do not believe Garrus Vakarian's inability to pick up on social cues is his fault," Gabriel whirred.

Adrienna shrugged, her face completely neutral—once again astounding Tali with the turian-ness of her human expression. Tali sighed and returned to her hunt for the elusive signal, pleased that now Adrienna and Gabriel would be able to keep Garrus distracted.

"Thank you, Gabriel," Garrus said, a little surprised.

"Indeed," continued Gabriel, "it is hardly your fault that your mobile platform is nearing total obsolescence."

Tali's eyes narrowed as she watched the next sequence of code. She had to be nearing the message's true origin. Technically, of course, there was no limit to how many locations the message could be bounced through, but the risk of fragmentation and delay increased exponentially past a certain point. And she was nearing that point.

"I don't understand what I've done to deserve this abuse. I did say I was sorry for—"

"_Boshtets!_" Tali hissed suddenly.

Everyone turned to stare at her. But Tali's glowing eyes were fixed on the information the console that had just flashed onto the screen. Just to make sure, she waved her hands in front of the console and double-checked that this was the final source of the message, but the instant that particular location had appeared, she had been certain.

"We are all _boshtets_," she muttered.

"Tali?" Garrus asked.

Wordlessly, she stepped away from the screen and gestured to the location that had appeared on the console. Garrus's eyes narrowed—and then widened in revelation.

"Yes," he growled. "We are."

"What is it?" asked Adrienna, eyebrows furrowed.

"Tiersa sent the message from an academy for biotically-gifted children," Tali explained. "Jack's school, if I'm not mistaken."

"Her old teacher?"

"It seems so obvious now," Garrus growled. "Tiersa is Jack's former student. And now the footage of Liara's death is concrete evidence of Cerberus's involvement. This would be more than enough to get Jack to help."

Adrienna hopped down off the crates, grabbing a couple packs of specialized ammo off the pile of supplies at her feet.

"Then let's go," she said, attaching the Mantis to her back.

"We could contact the school…" Tali suggested.

Garrus shook his head.

"No, we don't have time to secure the transmissions properly. Not against Cerberus," Garrus said. "Besides, Tiersa has tried to keep us out of the loop so far. If she knows that we know where she is, she might flee. She might guess that we'd stop her from going after Cerberus."

"Would we?" Adrienna asked, her eyes dark.

"Yes," Garrus said. "She'd be vastly outmatched. And they're expecting her. I'm not going to just let her walk into that trap."

As they all walked out of the door, Tali noticed Adrienna give her father a sideways glance as she lifted the tapestry out of their way.

"But someone has to stop Cerberus," she said carefully, watching her father's face. "If we won't let Tiersa, then who?"

Garrus didn't respond. Silently, he climbed into the skycar that Tali had summoned via auto-pilot to land on the roof of the embassy.

As Tali drove the skycar out of the city and towards the academy in the mountains, she couldn't help but feel some relief that Tiersa had ended up with Jack—or Miss Nought, as Garrus told her was the human biotic's current alias. Tali hadn't seen Jack in years: she hadn't been with Shepard when they had encountered Jack and her first batch of students at Grissom Academy. She admitted it was hard to reconcile her previous impression of Jack—a feral biotic with a hatred of every living thing—with the one that Shepard had described after Grissom—a teacher fiercely protecting the students she was nurturing into their full biotic potential. The fact that Jack had gone so far as to open up an entire school devoted to biotics was astounding to Tali, nigh-impossible to comprehend.

But there was also something comforting in knowing that Tiersa had ended up at Jack's side. Tali couldn't imagine that the biotic ex-con was a particularly good influence on the young asari, but she also knew that, like so many of them, Jack had developed a fierce loyalty to Shepard. Besides, Tali was sure that Jack's hatred for Cerberus couldn't possibly have tempered over the decades…even if everything else about Jack had. And Tiersa was both Shepard's daughter and Cerberus's number one enemy: the dual incarnation of the two things Jack would fight for and against above all else.

"I don't think we should just march in the front door," Garrus said as they approached the last few turn-offs before the school. "Tiersa might make a break for it if she sees us coming. Maybe we can get to Jack first. Explain the situation. And…hope…that she chooses to be reasonable."

"Agreed," Tali said, nodding. "Subtly is the safest option. Perhaps we can go in through a back door and find an office?"

"Right. Because if we find Jack, we'll find…"

But Garrus's words died in his throat as the academy grounds came into sight.

The school was ablaze with biotics and gunfire.

Tali felt nauseous. They had come too late.

She pulled the skycar up abruptly, veering back into the cover of the trees. But not before she caught a glimpse of the carnage in front of the school. There were skycars marked with the Alliance logo parked in front of the school in a stand-off formation. And the grounds were crawling with those former Cerberus troops they had encountered on Rannoch and at the derelict mercenary hideout.

On the east end of the yard in front of the school, Tali could see a group of maybe fifty students corralled into orderly rows by a contingent of troopers. Some of the students were resisting—their biotics lighting up in patches like signal fires—but the result was not pretty. Tali used the external cameras on the skycar to zoom in on the scene below them without breaking from the cover of the trees and clouds. She watched as a human teenager bowled over a trio of troopers with a shockwave…only to be clubbed from behind by another trooper. It didn't look like they were trying to kill the students, but the violence against schoolchildren was clearly excessive and sickening.

Tali couldn't believe the ferocity she saw instilled on the faces of these children. They were vastly outmatched and outnumbered by Cerberus. They should have been cowering meekly into the lines that the troopers were trying to herd them into. Some of them were—mostly the younger ones, many no older than seven or eight years old, by Tali's estimates. But for every two students keeping their heads down, another one would desperately try to rush a guard. One asari student even spat in the face of the trooper looking her over. The trooper smack her across the face with an armoured glove in response.

Garrus cued up the comm link in the skycar.

"Kaidan," he growled as the human's bewildered expression appeared on the screen. "You need to fix this."

"What? Garrus, I thought you were—"

"This is Jack's school. That biotic academy in the mountains," Garrus said quickly, transmitting the skycar's external feed through the message.

When Kaidan's face re-appeared, his mouth was set in a grim line.

"I have no idea who authorized this. But I promise you, I will find out." His eyes grew dark and Tali suddenly remembered Kaidan had attended a biotic training facility in his youth that must have been similar to this one. "God," Tali heard him mutter, just as the console flickered off, "Kids. They're just kids."

She landed the skycar in the cover of the trees, hidden from any cursory inspection by any troopers that could happen to glance up. Through the trees, they could all hear the sounds of the panicking children, punctuated by the harsh, modulated voices of the Cerberus troops. Gabriel's head was tilted in the direction of the sounds, his eye beam narrowed to only a pinprick of piercing through the shadows of the trees.

"They shouldn't resist," Tali said quietly. "They should just submit. They're making things worse for themselves."

"These children have been taught by Jack," Garrus said, his voice a strange mixture of admiration and regret. "Do you really think that common sense was on the curriculum?"

Adrienna's jaw was set and the green fires in the back of her brown eyes had been awakened.

"What's the plan?"

"We need to find Tiersa," Garrus said. "She's obviously who they're after. They'll leave the other children alone once she's out of their reach."

"And to find Tiersa, we need to find Jack," Tali added.

"The front door is crawling with troops. We can skirt around the perimeter of the grounds and try to find another way in. I suspect that, once we get inside the building, it will be fairly obvious where Jack is making her stand."

"Just follow the fireworks," Tali said. "Let's go."

She began to move as quietly as she could through the trees towards the fence marking the edge of the schoolyard, but she noticed quickly that Gabriel had remained stationary.

"Gabriel," she hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Creator Tali," he whirred, his eye beam widening only slightly as he spoke. "This unit is…uncomfortable…with leaving the children at the mercy of the enemy forces."

"I know," she said, "but we don't have a choice."

"I believe that to be a false assumption, Creator Tali." Gabriel said, but he began to move towards the schoolyard with the rest of them nonetheless. "Do we not always have a choice?"

As they neared the edge of the fence, it became abundantly clear that Cerberus troops had taken complete control of the building and that, no matter where they chose to enter, there was going to be fighting. They made their way around to the back, where a garage with only a couple of the school's utility vehicles and three of the Alliance skycars was parked. Adrienna raised her rifle and, before they even had to cross the open ground of the schoolyard, picked off the two troopers milling about in front of the garage.

"Move," Garrus ordered and all four of them rushed across the schoolyard.

About a dozen troops turned their heads and sprinted in their direction, raising their SMGs. Gabriel's eyebeam turned a vibrant blue as he pulled three of them into the side of the school. Tali tried not to notice—she was busy loading shotgun rounds into the nearest of the troopers—how the geth slammed one of the troops into the wall even after the audible sound of the trooper's neck snapping echoed through the grounds.

Then, they were at the door. Tali leaned down and quickly hacked the lock while Garrus and Adrienna covered her: their shots ringing out almost in rhythm with each other. After only a split-second, they were through, piling into the building. Tali sealed the door on the other side a heartbeat before the familiar boom of a grenade reverberated against the door.

There was a brief respite as they moved through what was clearly some kind of supply room and then into the academy's main hallways. As soon as they stepped out into the hallway, a smattering of poorly-aimed gunfire thudded into the wall beside them.

"You know," Garrus mused as he ducked out from behind the corner, shooting casually at the troops lining the hallway, "I think if you discount military sites, merc bases, and research facilities…you know, the usual places…I've fought more battles in schools than anywhere else."

"Really?" asked Adrienna curiously as she leaned out below him, sniping a Centurion cleanly through his skull.

"Well," Garrus reasoned, reloading a heat sink into his assult rifle "there was Grissom Academy. And then that Ardat-Yaksi colony seemed to be basically structured like a school for asari sociopaths. And that's just with Shepard. We had a batarian terrorist organization try to take some military academy students hostage when I was working Zakera Ward for C-sec."

"Huh," Tali said, "who would have thought that schools could be so dangerous?"

"I know," Garrus said. "Though maybe it's just me and the bad luck I tend to accumulate."

Tali sprinted out from their cover and raced down the hallway, pulling the trigger on her shotgun to take out the last of the troopers trapped in Gabriel's biotic field as she did so. She tossed a drone around the next corner and was satisfied to hear the cries of alarm from the troopers that had been hoping to ambush them. The others followed quickly on her heels.

As they reached what seemed to be an indoor garden and cafeteria, they all prepared to fire their weapons. But before anyone could pull the trigger, the four troops stalking amongst the plants were suddenly lifted off their feet and slammed—simultaneously—into a glass plate window that looked out onto one of the classrooms. Tali turned to look at Gabriel, but his biotics were only a dim flicker of blue light clasped in his synthetic fist. She followed his gaze and saw that almost a dozen children were clustered together behind one of the tables: all of them glowing brightly with biotics.

"It's okay," she said, approaching them cautiously as they scrambled out from underneath the table. "We're hear to help you."

"Well," said one of the oldest boys, blood trickling from his nose, "you obviously aren't with them."

"What happened here?" Tali asked quietly.

It was one of the smaller girls—an asari—that stepped forward now.

"They…they're from the Alliance. They called us all together into the main foyer. And then this woman told us that there was a fugitive hiding in our school. That she needed our help to find her. But then…then Miss Nought told her to…umm…get out of her school. And they started firing at her. Some of us…the older kids, mostly, they ran forward to try and help Miss Nought, but I don't know what happened next…I just…I was scared, so I ran."

There were sparkling blue tears threatening to fall from the corner of the small asari's eyes. Tali wondered how old she was: it was so difficult to tell with asari. She bent down and set her hands on the asari's shaking shoulders.

"These soldiers may seem like Alliance, but they are not good people," she said slowly, hoping that the students would understand the importance of what she was saying. "But they are only looking for one person. If you don't fight them, they shouldn't hurt you. It's better to surrender. Got it?"

The little asari sniffled and nodded, but Tali heard the older boy who had spoken earlier make a strangled sound of disbelief.

"Screw that!" he said. "They hurt Miss Nought. They invaded our school. I don't care if they're from the Alliance, but I'm going to hurt them as much as I can. We met another group of students who said that they've got Miss Nought pinned down in her office. We were trying to get there to help her."

"Listen," Tali said anxiously, trying to ignore the biotics coursing up and down the young man's Synthesis circuitry in a shiver of blue light. "You need to—"

"Admirable," Garrus said, stepping forward, nodding at the young man. "But, right now, the best you can do is hide and keep the younger students here safe. It's your job to protect them—even if that means giving yourselves up to the troops. Do you understand?" Garrus reloaded another heat sink into his rifle and gave the boy a piercing look. "We'll worry about Miss Nought. You worry about these students. They're your responsibility now."

The young man stared at the students clustered behind him: their eyes and their biotics clearly in varying stages of panic. He looked back up at Garrus, swallowed, and then nodded.

"How…how do you know Miss Nought, anyhow?" he stammered.

"We're old friends," Garrus said. "Now, which way is her office?"

The student pointed to the doors on the far side of the room and, reluctantly, ushered the other students back under the table: even ordering some of them to pull other tables around to make more effective cover. The kid was leader, Tali realized now, and she saw how clever Garrus had been to turn that potential into something that would help the students, rather than hinder their own mission to find Jack.

The four of them moved off through the door that the boy had indicated and Tali carefully sealed the door shut behind them, hoping that it would at least give the students some time to prepare if the Cerberus troops attempted to break through. They sprinted off down the hallway. Tali was disquieted by the lack of troops in this hallway, but she could hear the sounds of battle getting closer…

Then, they were all suddenly thrown sideways as a massive explosion ripped through the hallway. Tali felt all the breath leaving her body as she was slammed against the floor. She thought she saw a storm of biotics shoot overhead. But then she must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing she knew, Adrienna's tattooed face was hovering anxiously over her, calling her name.

"Tali!"

Tali gratefully grabbed Adrienna's hand and let the human pull her to her feet. Ahead, down the hallway, she could still hear the sounds of battle: gunfire and sizzling of biotics and maybe even one of Jack's warcries…but behind them there was a pile of debris as something had ripped through the wall beside them from the room running alongside the hallway. Tali couldn't see either Garrus or Gabriel. She felt sick looking at the pile of rubble at their feet.

But there was no time to even think about that now, because a figure stepped through the hole created by the explosion.

Eva Harper seemed as surprised to see them as they were to see her. She stopped, her lavender eyes wide as they flicked back and forth from Tali to Adrienna. She held up her hand as a trio of troopers appeared behind her. The troopers stopped, their heads inclined towards Harper, waiting for her instructions. One of the troopers had something…no, someone…slung across his armored shoulders.

Beside her, Adrienna gasped and swung her Mantis rifle up. Tali had no idea where her shotgun had disappeared to in the explosion—otherwise, she would have done the same.

Tiersa stirred restlessly on the trooper's back, moaning in pain. Her face was covered in blue blood and her biotics pulsed erratically across her skin, as if she wanted to use them but lacked the strength and focus to do so.

"Drop her," Adrienna said, her voice low and deadly. "Or I'll turn you into a smear of brain matter."

Tali did the only thing she could do and summoned a drone, letting it hover menacingly beside her.

Eva Harper smiled Miranda's tight-lipped smile. And then, almost casually, walked up to Tiersa's unconscious form and pressed a pistol to the young asari's head. Beside her, Tali felt Adrienna tense. And Tali couldn't help but remember that the look of complete unconcern on Harper's features was the same as the one she had worn in that footage—right before she had sent a bullet through Liara's temple.

"You won't do it," Tali said, trying to keep her voice even, trying to channel everything she'd learned from Shepard about hostage situations. "We know that you need her. We know why you need her. We know that you won't do it."

"Really?" Harper purred, tightening almost imperceptibly on the trigger. "I've been one step ahead of you every time. I killed Liara T'Soni. Did you know that, Tali'Zorah? And you,"—she said, turning to Adrienna with fury flashing through her eyes—"you are an abomination. You are everything that my father worked against. A human abducted and raised by an alien. More turian than human. And branded like one." Harper's eyes lingered on Adrienna's facial markings and she smiled. "I killed your father. I didn't pull the trigger, but I might as well have. Did you know that, _Junior_?" she sneered, laughing. Then, Harper leaned down to look straight into Tiersa's fluttering eyelids, almost whispering now. "How do you know what my grand plan is? How do you know that killing her is not just another part of the experiment?"

And then, suddenly, Tiersa's eyes shot open. Harper stepped back, cursing. And Adrienna took her shot. A bullet flew past Tali, burying itself in the skull of the trooper carrying Tiersa. Red blood and broken fragments of circuitry exploded everywhere as the headless trooper and Tiersa collapsed into a pile.

Tali tossed her drone towards the remaining two troopers and, panicking, they tried desperately to fire at it. Adrienna calmly fired another shot, covering Tiersa as she staggered to her feet. Her singularity—weak, fizzling at the edges—dragged the last of the troopers off balance and he screamed as Adrienna fired another shot into him.

But Harper just laughed, tossing back her blood-soaked hair and viciously kicking Tiersa's knee out from under her. The young asari collapsed with a cry of pain and then Harper bent down, grabbing her painfully by her fringe and lifting her pistol to the asari's face once again.

"Adrienna, Tali, damn it," Tiersa said, her voice cracking the edges. "What are you doing here? Listen, they've infiltrated every tier of the Alliance. They're waiting for something, I don't know what, but they're going to enact a coup. You have to stop them. You have to—"

Harper's pistol slammed against Tiersa's face and the asari cried out in pain.

"It's over," Tali said, stepping forward. "Let her go, Harper."

Harper just smiled and started dragging Tiersa away. Harper calmly generated her omnitool, administering some kind of sedative, and Tiersa's eyes rolled back into her head.

"Miss Nought! No, please no," Tiersa gasped, her blue eyes hazy and her mouth dribbling purple blood. "I couldn't save…I'm sorry…I'm…I'm not Shepard…I can't save anyone…I…"

Tali looked over at Adrienna and saw the nigh-imperceptible nod of the young human's head before they both charged down the hallway towards Harper. But Harper only smirked at them.

And casually dropped a grenade over her shoulder.

Tali barely had time to leap into Adrienna, pulling her behind the pile of rubble, before the grenade exploded. For a split-second, everything was light and sound. Tali felt every nerve in her body scream as all her sense were overloaded with pain and power.

Then, she felt the signals coming from her body coalesce into comprehensible information. Her eyes began to see through the dust that settled around her. Her ears were filled with a single, keening note. She tried to pull herself up, but found that her legs simply wouldn't work. And then she realized that she could hear Adrienna, screaming out Tiersa's name as she tried to scramble through the rubble.

A taloned hand appeared in front of her and Tali somehow found the strength to reach up and take it. Garrus's eyes were dark as he threw Tali's arm over his shoulders and half-carried her in the direction that Harper had gone. She wanted to tell him to leave her, to just go after Harper, but Tali already knew—she knew from the smug confidence on Harper's face in that heartbeat before she had tossed the grenade—that Tiersa was already gone. That they had failed. She knew it even before Garrus half-carried her through the door at the end of the hallway and into the sunlight. She knew it even before she felt his shoulder sag as he looked up towards the sky, before she heard the useless shots of Adrienna's rifle hitting nothing but air.

But still, Tali felt tears sting at the edges of their eyes as they watched the skycar ascend into the sky.

Tiersa.


	17. Countdown to Zero

**A/N:**

Next chapter will probably be up on Wednesday...

* * *

**Chapter 17: Countdown to Zero**

They found Jack at the back of her office. Tali didn't recognize her for a moment: she couldn't understand how the slumped, motionless, middle-aged woman could be the ex-convict she had travelled with on the Normandy, a human who was always crackling with energy, always on the edge of exploding in a rage of biotics or expletives or a combination of the two.

As they walked through the office towards her, they passed memorabilia of the life Jack had made for herself: photographs and holovids of past students lined the walls, datapads of lesson plans scattered across her desk, and even a model of the Normandy sat on a table in the corner. Tali wondered if it was Shepard's model. Shepard had been religious about collecting the things. Tali had even helped her assemble the quarian live-ship model, though Tali was fairly certain Shepard had pretended to be stuck on the tiny propulsion system only so that she'd have an excuse to ask Tali for help and talk to her for the first time since they had left the Flotilla.

"Tali," Shepard had said, almost casually as she glued a miniscule comm antenna onto the top of the model, "how are you doing?"

"Fine," Tali had said reflexively, reaching over to turn the antenna around so that it was pointed in the optimal direction to pick up intra-Flotilla transmissions.

"Tali, I mean it. You lost your father. How are you doing?"

There had always been something about the way Shepard looked at you that made it difficult to lie. Tali had answered truthfully then.

"I…" Tali had found her voice suddenly hitched with sobs. "I never saw his face, Shepard. I can remember my mother's…just vague, shifting memories from when I was very young. But I never saw the face of my own father until I removed his mask for the memorial rites. Until after he was gone…"

Now, Tali wondered if the same thing had happened with Jack: she hadn't ever really known the human, she realized as Tali and Garrus approached Jack's still form. Hadn't ever seen Jack's true face, hidden beneath the mask of anger. And now it was too late.

Jack's tattoos—faded, stretched—were visible beneath the sheer cardigan she wore over a simple tank top and pants. Tali didn't think she'd ever seen Jack exposing so little skin before but, then again, she had been a teacher in her new life. And she had hair. Her black hair was peppered with grey, but it was still long and sleek, reaching past her shoulders. Her lips were curled back in what Tali could only describe as a snarl.

But there was blood and gaping bullet wounds that were beginning to clot. And a bright splatter of raw flesh that Tali recognized as a biotic burn. Tali limped over to Jack and kneeled beside her. She'd barely known her. Hadn't really known this version of Jack at all. But there was something so completely soul-crushing to see her like this that Tali felt sobs heave from her chest as she reached forward to brush a lock of hair out of the biotic's face.

"Damn it, " Garrus growled, standing behind her. "Gabriel and I were trapped on the other side of the rubble and we…if we'd only been faster…"

There was a sound at the door and, behind her, Tali heard Garrus turn around.

"Junior! Gabriel!" he said, urgency coursing through even his subtonals. "Keep the students out of here."

Tali heard Adrienna and Gabriel rush back towards the door to comply, but a moment later, Tali was shocked to hear Kaidan's voice swearing softly as he stepped into the room and surveyed the scene.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly as he approached. "I brought as many Alliance personnel as I felt I could trust. We're going to clean this mess up."

"You've got bigger problems," Tali said, standing up and tearing her gaze away from Jack.

"Harper has Tiersa," Garrus growled.

Kaidan's shoulders visibly sagged: the look of a man who'd just had his worst fears confirmed.

"And before Harper carried her off, Tiersa tried to warn us," Tali said. "Kaidan, she said that the Alliance has been infiltrated by Cerberus operatives at all levels of command. She said that they're planning on staging a coup. She said that they're ready to enact it at any moment, but…but that they're waiting for something."

Kaidan shook his head.

"I'm looking into it, I promise. But these things take time. If Cerberus really has infiltrated the Alliance as deeply as you suggest, we'll need to find ways to flush out the agents individually without drawing attention to the conspiracy as a whole. I need to figure out who I can trust. I need time."

And Garrus's hand suddenly shot forward, pinning Kaidan up against the wall. Kaidan lit up with a biotic aura as his hands scrabbled uselessly at pulling Garrus's arm away from his chest. Tali ran forward.

"Garrus!"

But the turian's eyes were fixed on Kaidan's and he was deaf to whatever Tali had to say.

"We don't have time," he growled into Kaidan's face. "They have Tiersa. And they're going to torture her until—"

To his credit, Kaidan's gaze was steady as he stared back at Garrus.

"Until what?" he asked.

And Kaidan's tone took on a darker shade that made Tali realize that perhaps the human's excuses had been exactly designed to elicit this response from Garrus. Tali was reminded that Kaidan's amiable nature made it easy to underestimate him: the look in the human's eyes currently was calculating and expectant—not exactly the fearful expression of a mammal caught within the talons of an apex predator.

"What haven't you told me, Garrus?" Kaidan said, his voice straining as Garrus continued to lean against the human's chest. "I can't help Tiersa unless you tell me what's really been going on."

And now Tali stepped forward, placing an arm on Garrus's shoulder as she did so. The turian let his gaze move away from Kaidan for only a heartbeat to register Tali's nod. Kaidan was right. It was time to trust him. To take that leap of faith that there was still some good left in humanity.

Garrus let him fall. Kaidan landed on his feet, stumbling, but extinguishing his biotics. Kaidan barely spared the turian a glance as he smoothed out his uniform, turning now to Tali with grim anticipation as she tried her best to explain.

"A part of Shepard was left behind in the Synthesis," Tali began. "In order to create the new DNA we all possess now, Shepard had to undergo complete personality dissemination. Like Legion on Rannoch." She couldn't tell if Kaidan believed her as he listened to her impassively. "It means that some of Shepard's personality has been left behind. And that part of her…it resurrected Garrus."

Now there was definitely disbelief in the human's eyes.

"What?"

"They killed Garrus to see if Shepard could—and would—bring him back. And she did. Now they want to use Tiersa to demand the same treatment for the Illusive Man."

"And you didn't think to tell me this before because…?"

"Because you're Alliance and we didn't trust you," Garrus growled. "And still don't trust you," he added, glaring at Tali.

Kaidan just shook his head.

"I'm one of the good guys. And it's about time you two figured that out." Then, he sighed. "You're going after her?"

It was barely a question. Kaidan motioned for two Alliance medics standing at the doorway to enter and they began attending to Jack. Then, he turned back to them.

"Okay," he said quietly, glancing over at the medics suspiciously. "Then we do this the old way. You'll be the infiltration team. Track her down. Find her. Then you give me the signal and I'll send in the big guns. In the meantime, I'll gather a team of marines whose loyalties can't be questioned. And I'll start talking to the senior officers and see if we can root out these Cerberus agents."

Tali looked over to Garrus, expecting him to find something to protest in Kaidan's plan, but the turian merely nodded and then moved towards the doorway. Tali followed, but not before stealing one last glance at Jack's motionless form as the medics—their faces drawn and expressionless—loaded her onto a stretcher. She doubted either of those men knew who it was that they were carrying away: a school teacher with a wild past, perhaps. They had no idea.

But the students knew. The students had known Jack at her best. Tali wasn't sure if she could face them. She felt certain that her face would give everything away in a moment.

As they moved through the school, they passed a cluster of teachers being questioned and attended to by the Alliance soldiers. The teachers all looked exhausted and some were injured, clearly being held together with very little besides medi-gel and adrenaline. Tali wondered where Cerberus had corralled them, since she hadn't seen any out in the schoolyard on their initial approach. She wondered how the teachers would react when they found out what had happened to Jack. She tried not to look at them as she and Garrus moved down the hallway, even though she could feel their gazes following them until they were out of sight.

They found Gabriel out in the main foyer with a group of students gathered around him. Very few of them had seen a geth before—except in vids from the Reaper Wars, Tali guessed—and a biotic one was particularly exceptional. Gabriel seemed to be enjoying the attention. He was currently having a contest with one of the older students to see who could keep their singularity stable for the longest. The girl's eye was already blackening—doubtless from an altercation with one of the Cerberus troops and Tali wondered if she was among the first of the students that rushed to their teacher's defense—but there was also a smile on her face as she bested Gabriel and Gabriel gave a descending whir of faked disappointment. And some of the students even laughed.

As Tali watched the strange, small measure of comfort Gabriel was giving the students by being someone new and distracting, she realized for the first time how alone the geth until must have felt. There had been only a handful of geth outfitted with the eezo core processors. Gabriel had never had a biotic community like the one that Jack had created at this school.

The force Kaidan had assembled was small. Tali could see that instantly. These Alliance soldiers wandered through the children, offering them medi-gel and rations as they saw fit. Most of the soldiers, though, were scanning the remains of the Cerberus troopers with omnitools. Tali realized that, once the Alliance soldiers had arrived, most of the Cerberus troopers must have triggered their self-destruct mechanisms. She doubted the Alliance soldiers would gain much information from what little remained of the corpses.

She hoped that the cost had been high for Harper. She hoped that the woman had lost a good portion of her troops. She hoped that this would cripple anything Cerberus had planned.

But she doubted it.

It was Adrienna who dared to ask the question on everyone's minds as she approached, striding at them from across the schoolyard.

"What now?"

Tali opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say. Her legs burned from the force of the rubble that had landed on them and she could already feel the analgesic in the medi-gel wearing off. Her first stop was going to have to be the quarian doctor on staff at the embassy. But that wasn't really what Adrienna was asking.

Garrus simply stared straight ahead, not really watching anything. And Tali realized that he had to be thinking exactly what she was.

"You remember the last time we were this desperate?" she asked quietly.

Garrus nodded.

"After Thessia. After Lieutenant Bastard Kai Leng."

It was the only other time in her life that Tali had felt like this: the weight of failure coupled with the complete helplessness of having no clue what to do next. She could remember feeling desperately afraid—not only because the galaxy was at stake, but because she could see how this failure was the only thing that might break Shepard.

Shepard. The woman who had taken down a Reaper via staring contest on Rannoch. The woman who had cured the genophage. The woman who had gone through the Omega-4 Relay. That woman had been almost broken by Cerberus on Thessia.

Neither Tali nor Garrus had gone on that mission with her. It was a prothean artifact on Thessia, so Shepard had logically chosen Liara and Javik to accompany her. But she could remember seeing the heaviness that had settled in Shepard's eyes as she and her squad had departed from the shuttle. She remembered how Garrus—Garrus, who had always been so careful about hiding the extent of his relationship with Shepard—actually stepped forward and tried to set a reassuring hand on Shepard's blood-splattered shoulder.

But Shepard had brushed him away, storming off towards the comm room where the asari ambassador awaited her report. It had felt like all the oxygen left the shuttle bay with Shepard. And how a flicker of doubt had registered in Garrus's eyes: Garrus, whose faith in Shepard had been unshakeable from the beginning.

And that had terrified Tali more than anything.

She watched him now as he stared straight ahead at nothing, trying to see what he was feeling, but his eyes were dark and closed. Tali couldn't figure him out. Finally, though, he sighed.

"I keep thinking," he grumbled bitterly, "about Kai Leng's face when Shepard finally gutted him. It was a close call," he admitted, "he snuck up behind her, and I…I should have been watching her six. But Shepard took care of him. And the expression on that bastard's face was so…satisfying." He turned and looked at Tali. "I keep thinking that's the expression that Harper is going to wear when I finally do the same to her," Garrus shifted uncomfortably. "But…

"…but it's Miranda's face," Tali finished for him.

Garrus nodded.

"Exactly."

Tali could hear Adrienna shift beside her and she realized that the young human had probably never heard her father talk like this before. She remembered Adrienna telling her after they'd arrived on Earth that she had always been afraid to ask her father about his past. Silence settled over the trio for a few long minutes. Then, Tali saw one of the students break away from the crowd around Gabriel. It was the older boy they had encountered earlier.

"Hey," he said, nervously glancing at Tali and Adrienna before settling his gaze on Garrus. "I…I just wanted to let you know. I kept them safe, sir. We stayed in the cafeteria until the Alliance soldiers found us."

Garrus nodded. The boy seemed pleased with the approval, but didn't turn to rejoin the students. Instead, he swallowed and looked away.

"Did…did you find Miss Nought?" he mumbled.

Garrus's mandibles flickered against the side of his face.

Suddenly, Tali heard pounding footsteps coming from the hallway behind them. She turned to see Kaidan sprinting towards them, urgency etched across his features.

"You need to get back here," he said, without even a greeting. "We've found something you need to see."

Tali tried not to look at the young biotic's face as they followed Kaidan back into the school's hallways. Jack's office was almost exactly how they had left it—except that Jack herself was sequestered in a body bag on a stretcher in the corner of the room.

And except that the model of the Normandy was being surrounded by a tech team, all waving their omni-tools over it with unreadable expressions on their faces. Tali knew when her expertise was needed, so she pushed through the humans to reach the model. They had turned the model over and it was immediately apparent to Tali what they were all fixating on: a small, pulsing circular device that had been hastily stuck to the bottom with a glob of ancient omni-gel. She ignored the cries of outrage from the tech team as she snatched up the model and peeled the device from it.

She pushed back through the tech team and walked out the door, leaving Garrus, Adrienna, Gabriel and Kaidan to all rush after her.

"So?" ventured Adrienna.

"It's a locator," Tali said, not slowing her pace as she walked out the doors of the school. "Tiersa is using a tracking device."

Adrienna's eyes lit up.

"Smart kid," Garrus grunted.

"We need to hurry though," Tali said, anxiously glancing down at the device. "I have no doubt that once she arrives at wherever they're taking her, they'll scan her and disable the device. Maybe even try to redirect the signal to send us on a false trail. The sooner we move, the surer we can be that the signal is genuine." Tali glanced down at the locator once again and frowned. "It's moving too fast to be a skycar. They must have transferred to a shuttle. Kaidan?"

He nodded.

"Take one of the Alliance ones parked in the courtyard. I can't officially give you that kind of authorization without filling out a hell of a lot of paperwork. But how about me and my men just happen to look the other way while you commandeer that Kodiak there."

They all moved off towards the nearest shuttle that. But Kaidan coughed.

"No. Not that one. The one on the far left. It just had its thrusters retrofitted."

As they moved across to the shuttle Kaidan had indicated, Tali noticed how the four of them moved like a single unit: they had become a team, she realized. The revelation filled her with a confidence that honed her grief at the senselessness of Jack's loss into a focus that she knew would have deadly result for Cerberus. She knew, in that moment, that they could do this.

She cued open the hatch on the shuttle and they all stepped inside. Garrus glared Adrienna out of the pilot's seat and started up the engines. Wordlessly, Tali showed the locator's screen to Garrus as the shuttle lifted off, leaving the devastation of the school behind.

Cerberus was moving north.

It was Gabriel who broke the silence in the shuttle.

"Creator Tali, this unit estimates a seventy-nine percent probability that this is a trap arranged by the human known as Harper."

"He's right," Garrus grumbled. "The model of the Normandy. Not exactly subtle."

"Since when was Jack ever subtle?"

"No," he admitted, "but Tiersa should have been."

"They wouldn't had much time for anything better," Tali said. "Does it really matter if it is a trap? We're recon. Kaidan and his team shouldn't be far behind us."

"No, I suppose not," Garrus muttered.

"Besides," Tali grinned, "we do have some experience in suicide missions."

Garrus's mandibles flared wide in a turian grin.

"I almost feel sorry for Cerberus," he said, gunning the shuttle's engines into top speed.


	18. Making a Choice

**A/N:**

****Here we go...

For those of you who like being able to assess how close you are to the end of a story, the final chapter count looks like it will be 23. That's INCLUDING an epilogue. I'm not sure when I'll have chapter 19 up. Sometime over the weekend, hopefully? :-)

* * *

**Chapter 18: Making A Choice**

"Where are they heading?" Garrus asked, his talon hovering over the nav computer as he prepared to adjust the shuttle's course.

Tali looked back down at the locator.

"North. We're in for a trip of at least a few hours. They're moving faster than us and there's no sign of them slowing down anytime soon."

"Great," Garrus muttered. "We all know how much turians like the cold."

"Maybe if you'd grown up in space, you wouldn't mind so much," Tali answered cheerfully without taking her glowing eyes off the locator.

"Maybe if I'd lived most of my life inside a temperature-regulating environmental suit, I wouldn't mind the cold so much." Garrus leaned out of the pilot's seat and looked back at Tali with what could only described as a smirk. "You might find that you appreciate the cold a lot less without one, my quarian friend."

"You know," Adrienna said, rolling her eyes, "do you think you two could give it a rest for just a few hours? Seriously, I'm sixteen and I feel like I'm the only adult here."

"This unit has reached full maturation status according to the criteria established by the First Consensus following the War of the Old Machines."

"Right, sorry Gabriel. You're an adult too."

"Here," said Tali, handing the locator over to the geth, "you keep an eye on this."

"What are you doing?" Adrienna asked as Tali unbuckled her harness and began rummaging through the shuttle's compartments.

"Looking for an enviro-suit," Tali muttered sulkily.

Garrus gave a snort of laughter.

They travelled for several hours up the coastline. Tali watched as the soft, green terrain became rocky and brown. She also anxiously watched the external temperature gauge drop, but she considered herself fortunate that it was still late summer on this part of Earth, since a quick consultation with the onboard computers informed her that Earth's polar regions could reach deadly temperatures during the winter. As it was, they were probably only going to be uncomfortable. Settlements in the region seemed small and sparse: the perfect place for a base of operations that you didn't want to be questioned by the casual passerby.

After three hours in the shuttle, the locator's screen finally went blank. Tali could feel the others watching her anxiously as she bent over the locator, frantically triangulating the last location from which it emitted a signal.

It wasn't difficult: another hour further north and away from the coast. After a few minutes, though, the locator began registering a signal once again. Tali kept track of the route, but it moved quickly out of range at an incredible pace.

"Here's where we're heading," Tali said. "I think we should ignore any of the information received after the dead period. I have a feeling that it's probably a decoy."

"I agree," Garrus said, leaning forward to input the coordinates into the kodiak's nav computer. As the autopilot beeped cheerfully into operation, Garrus leaned back in the pilot's seat, and a thought occurred to Tali that hadn't before.

"Is this the facility you broke out of?" she asked. "The one where Liara…"

She couldn't finish the thought, but Garrus understood.

"No," he said. "That facility was south of Vancouver. Still on this continent, I think, but I had to catch quite a few transports before I made it back to the old neighbourhood. I tried going back there when I was looking for Tiersa on my own, but the place must have been abandoned after I broke out." His eyes became dark. "I'm not sure if there were other prisoners there. There was certainly a couple of floors of cells, but…"

Tali nodded. For now, there was nothing they could do but hope that no one else they knew had been detained at the other facility.

They passed the rest of the trip in silence, each wrapped in their own thoughts. The silence was only interrupted once by a message from Kaidan confirming the coordinates. His marine team was going to be a few hours behind them. Kaidan also warned them that he hadn't exactly been given enough time to vet all their credentials, so he'd picked his team more on his instinct of who he felt he could trust rather than on concrete evidence of their non-involvement with Cerberus. It was hardly ideal. But Tali and Garrus exchanged a look after Kaidan's call that said they were thinking the same thing: there was no turning back now.

When the silence resumed again, Garrus took to upgrading Tali's shotgun and his own assault rifle with some of the mods they had purchased in order to pass the time. Adrienna fiddled endlessly with the scope of her Mantis. If he had been organic, Gabriel would have needed to consume vast amounts of food in order to keep his metabolism functioning for another round of biotics today. As it were, the equivalent process in the geth involved feeding off energy from the kodiak's engines before going into standby mode to preserve as much of that energy as possible.

Finally, the console signalled that they were nearing the approach. Garrus turned off the autopilot and retook the controls, piloting a wide berth around the facility. It loomed beneath them: a seemingly endless array of standard grey modules fitted together across the barren summer tundra. Tali took one glance out the window and realized that breaching the facility without detection was going to be more than difficult: it was going to be nigh impossible.

They all had little doubt that their approach in the shuttle could have easily been detected, despite landing nearly a kilometer from the base, so they left the shuttle's landing site as quickly as they could. There wasn't much in terms of cover on the landscape, so they had to make do with moving from ridge to ridge, hoping that most of the Cerberus personnel were too busy preparing for the Illusive Man's resurrection to sent out too extensive a search party. They were counting on Harper's arrogance, hoping that she believed she had won at Jack's school. The strategy had worked once before with Kai Leng. Tali hoped that Cerberus would make the same mistake of hubris again.

Kai Leng's expression of shock on Miranda's face. It was still a disturbing thought.

They hunkered down behind one of the ridges overlooking the facility to catch their breath. Tali could see several troops patrolling along the perimeter of the facility and, occasionally, a brief flash of red light indicated that there were Nemesis snipers positioned along the roof. She didn't need for Garrus to narrow his eye—the one that had become merged with his visor after the Synthesis—and grumble about how the place was filled with troops expecting trouble. But he did anyway, of course.

Gabriel raised his head over the edge and then quickly ducked down just before a sniper's laser-sight swept over the top of the ridge.

"I have calculated a possible strategy for attacking this facility," he said. "A sizable distraction in one area of the base may draw enough guards that the likelihood of a successful infiltration by the remaining squad members will increase by a significant margin."

"Alright, geth," Garrus said, giving him a keen look. "What did you have in mind?"

"This unit's biotic skill and armor plating would make it the logical choice for such a distraction."

Adrienna's eyebrows narrowed and she gripped the Mantis a little tighter.

"Gabriel," she said anxiously, glancing at her father and clearly hoping that he would protest, "we can't send you in alone. Even you wouldn't survive that."

Gabriel's head cocked a little further to the right as he swung his eye over to Adrienna's face. The plates above his eye rose.

"There are additional factors that make this unit ideal for this function. This unit was concealed during both encounters with the human known as Eva Harper. It is unlikely that this unit would be immediately associated with the other members of the squad. Therefore the odds of Harper deeming my appearance merely a distraction are within acceptable parameters. Additionally, as one of the only biotic geth and certainly the only specimen of this nature on Earth, I am a valuable piece of technology. It is unlikely that Harper would damage this unit past the point of repair. The mobile platforms of the rest of you," he said, sweeping them critically with his eyebeam, "are not likely to induce such courtesy."

"Try not to get too full of yourself," Garrus grumbled.

Gabriel turned his crooked head towards Adrienna and whirred.

"Adrienna Vakarian, does your paternal associate always attempt to express friendship and gratitude through insults and claims to superiority?"

Despite the situation, despite the possibility that they could already be too late, despite Jack and everything that had happened, both Adrienna and Tali couldn't help but laugh as Gabriel narrowed his eyebeam in Garrus's direction.

"You know," Tali said, seriously reflecting on some of the many conversations she'd had with Garrus over the years, "I think that's actually true."

"That's…hilarious, Tali," Garrus muttered. "Really."

"Seriously Vakarian, I think he's onto something," Tali teased. "You've clearly got some deep-seated emotional issues that you should work through. Do you remember what you were like when we first met? All that 'quarians should feel bad for creating the geth' stuff?"

Garrus groaned.

"Please. Don't remind me."

Adrienna's eyes widened.

"You actually said that?"

"Anyhow," Tali continued, "if I had known that was only an 'attempt to express friendship and gratitude through insults and claims to superiority,' it could have avoided all kinds of misunderstandings. I wouldn't have had to cry myself to sleep all those nights on the Normandy…"

Garrus's mandibles beat against his jaw and he looked so appalled that Tali actually felt bad for making the joke at all.

"Did you actually—?"

"_Keelah _no, Garrus," she said, laughing and placing a hand on his shoulder. "I did not cry myself to sleep. This was the quarian who'd recently been shot in the Citadel. I could handle a few chastisements from a narrow-minded turian."

"I'm pretty sure I already apologize for that. Isn't there some kind of rule that you can't continue to make me feel awful about something that I've already apologized for?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Tali said, shrugging.

"Okay," said Adrienna, "I'm intervening again. Can we focus on making a plan to get Tiersa out of here?"

"I think we should go with the geth's plan," Garrus said, nodding in Gabriel's direction. "It seems like our best shot."

Tali noticed that Garrus didn't look at Adrienna as he said this. And so he avoided seeing the hurt that sprang into her brown eyes.

"Gabriel's right," Tali said, more gently and touching Adrienna's arm. "He's the best chance we have."

Gabriel glanced over at Adrienna but then, oddly, swung his gaze over to Garrus.

"Garrus Vakarian, I would like to request a private communication?"

Garrus nodded and followed the geth a little ways off, further down the ridge and away from the facility. But Tali decided that she wasn't about to be left out of this discussion.

"Keep watch," she said to Adrienna, barely giving the human a chance to protest before Tali jogged down the hill after them.

Adrienna gave one anxious glance back at them before turning her gaze into the scope of her rifle. Gabriel whirred at looked at Tali like he was about to tell her to wait with Adrienna, but his shoulders sagged as he must have decided, from the look on her face, that Tali was going to hear whatever he had to say.

"This unit did not wish to…distress…Adrienna Vakarian with this additional information," he said quietly. "But there is another possible strategy which this unit will employ if the situation reaches a critical state."

Tali had noticed that Gabriel had a tendency to fall back into "this unit"s and "this platform"s whenever he was anxious. She leaned forward, suddenly concerned that she knew exactly what Gabriel had in mind.

"This unit could overload its eezo processing core in order to produce a sizable biotic shockwave that would cause severe physical distress to the mobile platforms of any Cerberus troops in the area, as well as compromise the base's structure."

"No," Tali said immediately. "You shouldn't have to do that. Whatever trouble you get into, you let us know and we'll get you out."

"Negative. Retrieval of Tiersa T'Soni should be primary objective."

"How large an area, Gabriel?" Garrus asked.

Tali was appalled that he was actually considering this, but the turian carefully avoided her gaze and watched Gabriel instead, awaiting the geth's answer.

"Although only theoretical, this unit's calculations estimate an affected area of approximately twenty-seven metres."

Now, finally, Garrus shook his head.

"That's not worth it, Gabriel."

But the geth drew himself up, straightening his cybernetic spine.

"This unit was not asking for permission. This unit merely wished to inform Garrus Vakarian and Creator Tali that this strategy will be utilized if deemed necessary."

"Gabriel," Tali said urgently, "listen to me. It won't be necessary. If something happens, we'll get you out."

"This unit…" Gabriel shook his head. "Negative. I. I am an individual and will make my own decisions."

And Tali was startled by the cool confidence in his voice. This was nothing like the last geth she had watched sacrifice itself for the greater good. This was not Legion plaintively asking her—its Creator, its Mother, its God—whether or not it had a soul. This was a geth who understood that he had a soul.

And that it was his choice what to do with it.

Gabriel shone his eyebeam up towards Adrienna for a moment. With the narrowing of his gaze in Adrienna's direction, Tali realized that Gabriel had no intentions of going back up the ridge. He wouldn't—or couldn't, perhaps—say goodbye to the little human who he had guided across the galaxy.

"Adrienna Vakarian has not yet reached full maturation status," he said quietly. "Garrus Vakarian, will you please ensure her protection if this unit…if I…cannot be there?"

Garrus's mandibles flicked against the side of his jaw and, for a moment, it seemed like he was going to say something. But, instead, he only held out his hand. Gabriel quirked his head at the extended hand for only a second before reaching forward and taking it between his narrow synthetic fingers.

"However things turn out," Garrus said, "it's been an honor. And, here," he said, reaching for a pistol that he had clipped to his back, "take this. If you're going solo, you're going to need something to take them down when your biotics cool off."

Gabriel looked thoughtfully down at the pistol for a moment. Then, he clipped it to his hip and turned to Tali.

"_Keelah se'lai _Creator Tali."

"Gabriel, don't—"

But then he was gone, biotic energy springing into his palms as he sprinted around the perimeter of the ridge and towards the main gate of the facility. Tali and Garrus rushed back to the top of the ridge and Adrienna fixed them with her turian-esque stare.

"Everything okay?"

Tali looked away.

"Yes," Garrus said. "We need to move. Now."

And as they sprinted around the opposite side, Tali could just see Gabriel crest the top of the ridge, his white plates catching Sol's light like a beacon. There was a moment of confusion, of panic, as the voices of the troopers rose up from the facility. Gabriel's form became spotted with red dots. And then, in the instant before the Nemesis units pulled their triggers, he moved forward down the ridge. With a biotic surge, he pulled the first line of troops up into the air, slamming them against the outer wall of the base. Now, there was full-on panic from the troopers. And Tali watched with a mixture of satisfaction and fear as the troops in their path moved off towards the front of the facility.

Their way was practically unimpeded as they reached a side door. Garrus overloaded the camera leering at them from the corner. A few shouts went up as Tali crouched by the panel, quickly hacking the door, but there was the steady boom of Adrienna's rifle and shorter staccatos of Garrus's assult rifle in answer.

Then they were inside.


	19. Infiltration

******A/N:**

****Next chapter will probably be up Wednesday. :-)

* * *

**Chapter 19: Infiltration**

There was no doubt that they had to move quickly. Overloading the cameras in the area had effectively announced their presence to whatever security personnel were monitoring the system, but it did at least leave the enemy in the dark as to their exact location—at least until Cerberus managed to get the cameras back online.

"We should try to find the surveillance room," Garrus suggested. "If they have cameras around the entire facility, we can use them to locate Tiersa. The surveillance room will probably be located somewhere close to the center of the facility, on the second floor."

Tali nodded in agreement.

"Troopers headed our way," Adrienna yelled as she peered around the corner with her scope.

Tali and Garrus both ducked behind the corner. A second later, Adrienna's finger tightened on the trigger. There was panicked bark of orders from somewhere down the hall.

Tali sent out a drone, seeing through its eyes as it zoomed into the midst of the team of six troopers at the end of the hallway. They looked like they had been on their way to the front of the building, exactly to where Gabriel was entertaining Cerberus with a biotic fireworks display.

Tali saw, from the drone's perspective, as bullets from Garrus's assault rifle and Adrienna's Mantis thudded into the troops. In less than a minute from when Adrienna had spotted them, the Cerberus troopers were reduced to smears of blood and smoking circuits.

"Second floor, you said?" Tali confirmed as they sprinted through the hallway.

Garrus nodded. "We need to find an elevator."

"There's more up ahead," Adrienna said.

And they barely had time to raise their weapons before another squad of troopers practically ran into them. Tali took it as a good sign that, so far, the troopers had seemed surprised to see them. It meant that their presence probably hadn't been detected yet. And there were no specialized troopers either. Tali had no idea what was left of Cerberus. But she was certain that, if Harper knew they were here, she wouldn't have chosen to just send her weakest units their way just for the sake of softening them up for the big guns.

Tali finished off the last of these troopers with a shot to the gut. Her legs still ached from the grenade explosion earlier, but the medi-gel and thrill of battle was keeping away the worst of the pain. So far, so good. Adrienna flashed her a grin, thinking the same thing.

"Not a scratch so far," the young human said.

Tali just returned Adrienna's grin, but she could see the wariness that registered on Garrus's face.

"Don't get cocky, Junior," he growled as they continued to move down the hallway.

Tali snorted.

"And who exactly do you think she gets that little overconfidence streak from?"

Garrus just grunted in response.

After only a few more turns, they found the elevator. The console was still green—yet another sign that Cerberus had failed to realize that they had infiltrated the facility, since they hadn't locked down the elevators yet.

They stepped into the elevator, and, as the three of them stood side by side, Tali couldn't help it. She started to whistle her favorite tune from the Citadel's old elevator music. Garrus gave her a withering look.

"Is that really necessary?" he asked.

"I thought you might be nostalgic. If you want, you can make some horrible comment about my people now," she said cheerfully.

After a few seconds of nothing but turian-induced glare as Tali continued to whistle, she turned to Garrus again.

"Can turians even whistle?"

"No."

"Huh. It's a relatively new phenomenon for quarians. With the suits, we couldn't whistle because the resonant frequencies would interact with the voice modulators to create this awful feedback that could fracture your audio sensors."

"That's great, Tali. Really."

And so she resumed her whistling until the elevator doors opened and were promptly flooded with smoke.

"Centurion!" Garrus yelled. "Find cover!"

Tali wasn't sure where they could actually find cover in an elevator, but she ducked behind the edge of the door, coughing and wishing that she did have her environmental filters from her suit once again. Gunfire thudded against the back of the elevator a second later.

Tali heard the sizzling of failed shields from somewhere behind her—Adrienna, possibly. Tali tossed a drone out into the smoke and was satisfied to hear the cries of alarm, buying them a moment's respite as the gunfire turned upon her drone. Seeing through the drone's eyes meant that Tali could use its infrared sensors to pick out where the troopers were in the smoke. She felt a spatter of gunfire tear through the drone's interface.

She readied her shotgun as the smoke cleared, pulling the trigger and spraying bullets into the first trooper that appeared through the haze. He went down and Tali kept firing. Another smoke bomb went off, but not before there was the sound of Garrus's omni-tool gearing up beside her and the Centurion's shields flickered out. Before the smoke could completely blanket him once again, Tali saw a shower of green sparks and the Centurion's head exploded.

She fired wildly into the smoke until the voices stopped. Then, as the haze disappeared, she cautiously stepped out of the elevator. The bodies of more than a dozen troopers were scattered in front of the elevator. She heard Garrus and Adrienna behind her.

"Well," Adrienna said philosophically, "I think we've probably lost our element of surprise."

"Are your shields back up?" Garrus asked her and Tali noticed how he assessed his daughter's armor with an extra bit of scrutiny.

"Yeah," she grimaced. "Let's go."

They moved through the hallways towards the center of the facility, picking off troopers as they came upon them (mostly in pairs, clearly scattered and disorganized). At a momentary pause in the troops, Tali suddenly had an idea. She reached out to the wall beside them and tried networking with the camera near the ceiling. For a moment, she could see what the camera saw: the three of them in the hallway, her own eyes closed as she concentrated on the networking, Garrus and Adrienna instinctively moving around to cover her back even though they had no idea what she was doing.

Then, she reached out with her mind into the camera's innards. She felt the green light burst from her fingers and flare along the circuitry running from the camera, through the walls, and towards the surveillance room, where the tangled snarl of circuitry coming from all over the facility gathered into one place. Tali sensed where it was: a small, unmarked door only a few corners away from the hallway in which they currently stood. As soon as she had the information, Tali sent out a burst of electricity, frying all of the cameras between their current position and the room.

Tali disconnected from the camera and then, wordlessly, she pointed in the direction of the door to the others. They reached it with only encountering two more troopers, which Garrus dispatched before Tali could even raise her shotgun.

"This is it," Tali said as soon as she spotted the nondescript door.

She pressed her hand against the lock and, in minutes, it gave way to her hacking skills. The door slid open soundlessly and all three of them peered into the room.

Two Centurions were watching an array of monitors. As they heard the door open, only one turned around—given the ordinariness in the gesture, Tali guessed that they had been expecting someone.

But, clearly, a human, a turian, and a quarian weren't who the Centurion was expecting to see standing in the doorway. The Centurion let out a garbled cry of surprise, but, before he could even raise his weapon, Garrus strode into the room. In one smooth motion, he shoved the Centurion against a row of monitors, heaving his omni-blade through the weak armor at the neck. And the Centurion crumpled to the floor. The other seemed too stunned to do anything for a second, his weapon held limply in his hand.

And Tali thought maybe she'd have to reassess her previous appraisal of Garrus's skills in close-combat.

And then the other Centurion recovered, his hand shooting out for something on the array of controls in front of him. Tali didn't know what the Centurion was trying to do, but she guessed it was probably an alert of some kind. He didn't reach it, though. A shot from Adrienna took out his shields and Tali, determined not to let Garrus show her up anytime soon, let loose with her shotgun.

One of her bullets grazed Garrus's shields.

"Watch where you're shooting, vas Normandy," he growled.

"Watch where you're standing, Vakarian," she muttered in response, striding into the room.

Garrus pulled the body of the Centurion off the console, piling it into the corner with the remains of the other. Adrienna shut the door behind her as Tali glanced at the monitors blanketing the back wall, reminding her of Liara's Shadow Broker office on the Normandy. It was immediately apparent that neither Tiersa nor Harper were currently on the screens.

But they could see Gabriel.

Tali could hardly believe that he was still functioning. He had found cover behind some crates piled by the front gate and the troopers were clearly having difficulty uprooting him. As yet another wave attempt to storm over his cover, Gabriel threw out a stasis bubble that caught them all neatly in various poses. Then his eyebeam narrowed as he picked them off with potshots from his pistol.

But on one of the other monitors, Tali could see a large group of nearly forty troopers rushing down the hallway towards where Gabriel was holed up. Adrienna saw it too.

"We have to help him," she said, pointing to the monitor. "He won't be able to handle that many."

Garrus moved over to the console and began flipping through various feeds and angles.

"The best way we can help him," he said, "is to find Tiersa."

"There!" Tali cried. And the other two clustered around the monitor she was pointing at.

For a moment, Tali feared that she was dead. Tiersa was so still. But as Garrus zoomed in with the camera, they could see her chest rising in stuttered breaths. Cerberus obviously hadn't done much of anything to patch her up since the fight at the school. Her face was still covered in a mixture of blood, but the bright blues and reds had dried to dull purples and maroons. Her blue eyes occasionally flickered opened and took in her surroundings, but the harsh, white lights of the small cell were clearly painful to her vision.

"Where is that?" Adrienna asked, her voice steel.

Garrus peered at the footage's ID at the bottom of the screen.

"Not far from here. Main floor. Let's go."

Garrus and Adrienna turned away from the screen and moved towards the door. But Tali's eyes narrowed as she caught a sudden flicker of movement on the screen. The door to Tiersa's cell had opened. A lone Cerberus trooper sprinted into the cell.

"Wait!" Tali called. "I think that they're moving her."

Garrus rushed back to the monitor, eyes narrowing as he saw the trooper.

"It doesn't look...What the hell is it doing?"

The trooper had rushed over to Tiersa's side and, instead of hauling her out of the cell, the trooper had cued up an omni-tool. It looked like he was dispensing medi-gel. Tali expected that they probably needed her in a decent condition to move her. But there was something almost…human about the movements of the trooper that seemed remarkably out of place.

"Since when do Cerberus troopers have omni-tools?" Garrus muttered, ice-blue eyes locked on the images on the screen.

"Maybe it's an upgrade?" Tali suggested hesitantly.

"I don't think…"

Tiersa stirred, looking up at the trooper with confusion coating her dull eyes. Tali realized that the trooper was saying something to her. Tali frantically looked around for some way to cue the audio feed from the cell into their room.

Then, Tiersa started to say something to the trooper, her blue eyes regaining some of their fire. But she cut off abruptly as the trooper lay a hand on her shoulder. Tali stared at the screen, now completely confused. The trooper stepped back, arms outspread.

And then pulled off his helmet.

"Well, I'll be damned." Garrus breathed. "If it isn't James Vega."

There was a moment of stunned silence in the room as the scene on the monitors continued to play out: James stepped back over to Tiersa as they apparently continued to converse, a much more trusting expression on Tiersa's face now—albeit there was still a flicker of doubt in the back of the young asari's eyes that told Tali that Tiersa hadn't entirely ruled out Vega's appearance a Cerberus trick. And then it was Adrienna that dared to break the silence in the surveillance room.

"Who?" And then her brow furrowed as she remembered, turning to her father as she answered her own question. "Your old friend. The one whose voice and image the mercs used to lure you away from the house," she frowned. "The one that Kaidan Alenko said was missing."

"And I hope to the Spirits that really is him," Garrus said, his eyes never leaving the screen, as if he could determine simply by staring hard enough whether or not to trust the man who appeared—at least—to be James.

Tali could remember first meeting James in the midst of the Reaper Wars. He had been the youngest and the most naïve of Shepard's companions, which Tali personally appreciated, since she had previously occupied the position of youngest and most naïve (not that Shepard would have ever told her that, but Tali knew it had been true). Tali remembered asking Garrus about what he thought of James shortly after she came onboard the Normandy for the last time during the War.

"Vega? He's a tank," Garrus had said. "Shepard has traded in the Mako for an Alliance marine."

Tali had laughed, but, upon seeing James in action, Tali had to admit there was something about James's fighting style that was reminiscent of the Mako: both were practicially indestructible, crashing through enemy troops with abandon.

But the version of James she saw in the monitor was older. He was no less massive. His arms had gained more of a sinewy quality and his face was a little heavier. But, as he quickly pulled an SMG off his hip, there was now a precision to his movements that reminded Tali of Shepard. It was the Alliance's N7 training, maybe, but Tali couldn't help but admire how effortless it all seemed for him: what James had lost in strength due to age, he had clearly made up for with control.

James was leaning down and saying something to Tiersa, an earnest look on his face as he tried to get Tiersa's pain-riddled gaze to focus on him. It was that moment that finally snapped Tali out of her shock.

"Audio!" Tali muttered, scrambling through the controls, "we need audio!"

She finally found the right control and the audio feed from Tiersa's cell crackled through the monitor.

"—a friend of your mother's. Father's. Both. I dunno."

"…I know…" Tiersa was muttering, her voice laced with pain and confusion. "…I know you...James Vega. Stationed on the Normandy during the Reaper War. N7 Operative…Last seen seven months ago…Presumed to be in deep cover on unknown assignment…"

"Yeah, yeah, that's me. And this was my deep cover. But now is as good a time as any to blow it, I figure. There's an assault on the base in progress. All available personnel are being called towards the front entrance. Something about a geth and something about biotics." James gave her a keen look. "Friends of yours?"

"…Gabriel…?" Tiersa stuttered, her eyes glazing over again as she struggled to process James's words. "…how could he…?"

"Hey," he said quietly, placing a hand on her shoulder. "don't hurt yourself. Damn, you are not in good shape. Cerberus bastards. Hold on."

And James stood, striding towards the cell's door. He opened it by slamming a giant fist against the console. A second later, he pulled in a trooper that must have been standing guard just on the other side of the door: James's sinewy arm was wrapped around the trooper's neck. The trooper kicked for a moment, but then went limp. James let the body slide to the floor.

He bent down and scooped Tiersa into his arms. Limp and cradled within Vega's massive arms, Tiersa almost looked like an asari doll that Tali had once seen sold at a Citadel souvenir shops.

"Come on, Little Lola," James said to her. "Let's get you out of here."


	20. Sparks and Scars

**Chapter 20: Sparks and Scars**

As Vega swept her up into his arms, Tiersa was clearly fighting to stay conscious. Tiersa opened her mouth—possibly to protest—but then closed it again as she struggled to scrutinize Vega's face through her blurred vision. Tiersa wasn't in much of a position to argue—and doubtlessly she knew it—but Tali could see the doubt and caution recede into the back of Tiersa's blue gaze as she examined the former marine. Then, Tiersa nodded vaguely. She had made the decision to trust him, Tali realized. Vega, apologizing awkwardly, shifted Tiersa around so that she lay across his shoulders and he could more easily handle the Cerberus-issued SMG that was dwarfed to pistol-sized in proportion to the massive fist that gripped it.

And he moved towards the door.

"Tali," Garrus said urgently, eyes still fixed on the monitor, "get me access to the intercom in that cell."

Now that they had the audio feed, gaining intercom access was easy. Tali found the controls and activated them all within the space of seconds. Just as Vega's hand reached out to brush the door's console, Garrus leaned forward, hitting the comm button.

"James!"

On the monitor, they could see Vega jump, almost dropping Tiersa in the process. Tali could see his eyes gain that uncomfortable quality of someone who had been in deep cover long enough that they had forgotten the sound of their own name. Tiersa seemed to have fallen unconscious again, but she stirred slightly at the sound of Garrus's voice. Every muscle in Vega's body was tensed.

"Uh…hello?" he ventured to the empty cell.

Beside Tali, Adrienna snorted. Apparently she expected a little more finesse from an N7 operative. Finesse had never really been Vega's thing though. Tali could see Vega looking over to the camera now, peering into its placid gaze and unknowingly meeting the eyes of those in the room staring at the monitor. And then, as he worked through trying to identify a voice that he hadn't heard in decades, revelation crept cautiously into Vega's gaze.

"Scars?" he muttered. "What the hell?"

Tali was losing patience. She shoved Garrus out of the way.

"James, we're here to rescue Tiersa. And Kaidan is bringing a contingent of Alliance marines that should be right behind us. We just need to keep Tiersa safe until then."

"Sparks? You too?" Then, he shook his head, deciding to just roll with this latest development. Improvisation had always been Vega's strong suit, Tali recalled. "There's a garage on the west side of the facility. Basement level. I'll get her there."

"Understood," Garrus said. "We've got your back."

Tiersa stirred again.

"…Garrus…dead…" she moaned. "…dead…saw you die…Adrienna…we…"

"Hey, relax Little Lola," James said. "Everything is going to be fine now. Promise."

He moved towards the cell door again.

"Wait!" Adrienna said. "Look. It's Harper."

Adrienna pointed to one of the other monitors. Eva Harper was moving with purpose through a hallway, leading a grim line of Cerberus troops behind her.

The cold determination glinting in Harper's lavender eyes was disconcerting. She looked like a woman who believed she had already won. There were at least two dozen troopers marching in Harper's wake—definitely larger than any contingent that they had encountered thus far. Tali's gaze flicked down the location information on the bottom of the monitor.

They were heading towards the cell.

"Damn it," Garrus muttered.

Tali found the comm system.

"James, Harper isheading towards your location. She's in the north hallway with more troops than even you can handle. You need to get out of there. Now."

"What?"

"Go!" Tali yelled.

And she didn't need to tell him again. Vega was off, kicking the console on the door open and sprinting into the hallway, Tiersa slung over one shoulder and the SMG in his hand. They watched Vega move from monitor to monitor faster than they could crank their necks to follow his progress. He was finally slowed when he rounded a corner into a pair of troopers moving to intercept him. James wasn't exactly subtle: he pulled back on the trigger, yelling something in a human language whose codices were not programmed into Tali's translator. The troopers fell to the ground. It took five shots from the SMG finished them, but not before one of the troopers managed to get a signal off from his suit.

On another monitor, Harper paused mid-stride and glanced down at her omni-tool, reassessing the situation. A second later, she was leading her troops in a new direction. Tali could tell that now she was heading towards the facility's front foyer. They would cut James off before he could even get close to the garage.

"We have to get down there," Garrus said.

Tali pulled her gaze away from the monitors. The three of them rushed out of the surveillance room, back down through the maze of hallways to the elevator. There were no enemy contacts: they must have completely cleared the floor. But there was a red light on the elevator's console.

"Great," Tali said, crouching down and cueing up her omni-tool. "Now they lock down the elevators."

"There's no time!" Garrus yelled, grabbing Tali by the arm and hauling to her feet. "On the monitors I saw another way down. This way."

As they rounded the corner, the hallway opened up into some kind of lounge area: there were couches and tables and decorative Earth plants. The wall at the far end of the room was composed of plate glass windows that looked out onto the floor below. Below them, Tali saw, was the front foyer of the complex. The staccato of gunfire and sizzle of biotics was very loud. And, as they approached the window, Tali suddenly realized why this second floor was all cleared of troops.

They were all in the foyer below them. Battling with Gabriel.

Almost one hundred troops were amassed below them, taking cover behind reception desks and weapons lockers. There was a burst of biotics from near the main doors. Adrienna drew a sharp intake of breath as Gabriel stepped out of cover to throw a trooper against a wall with a surge of biotic light.

The geth unit had taken cover behind a row of weapons lockers that he must have pulled biotically to form a crude barrier around himself. He was pinned down with nowhere to go, but the troopers were clearly struggling to uproot him: the debris was scattered around the room in such a way that the troopers attempting to charge Gabriel's cover could only come at him three abreast. It meant that Gabriel kept pulling troopers into the air, locking them into stasis bubbles, and then firing his pistol into them until they collapsed. Tali was sure that the weapons lockers around him probably had a limitless supply of heat sinks…and that it had probably taken Gabriel all of two seconds to hack the lockers open.

"It's kind of an embarrassing day for Cerberus, isn't it?" Garrus said, looking down onto the scene. "One lone geth against a hundred Cerberus troops. And they can't manage to bring him down."

But beneath the bravado, Tali could hear the worried tones in Garrus's voice. Adrienna could too. She gave her father a dark look, her brows furrowed and her brown eyes fixed on the spot where Gabriel's left arm had once been. The torn circuits at his shoulder were sparking off into empty air. And his biotics were unravelling at the edges, his latest stasis barely lasting long enough for the geth unit to reach for the pistol and plug the troopers with bullets.

"Dad, he's not going to make it," Adrienna said grimly. "We—"

"He's fine, Junior." And Tali caught the glint of a strange light in Garrus's eyes as he stared at Gabriel. "It's just a bit of target practise. That's all."

"James is heading straight for this mess. Where's your way down?" Tali asked.

Garrus inclined his head, very slightly, towards the window in front of them.

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Junior," Garrus said, ignoring Tali entirely, "you'll stay up here. Cover us. This is a sniper's paradise."

For a moment, Adrienna looked like she was going to protest, but there was no denying that she was going to be the most useful sniping from above. So instead she nodded.

"Just a little target practise," she said quietly, networking with her rifle again. "Just keeping the nightmares away. Right, Dad?"

"That's right, Junior."

And Adrienna fired a shot through the plate glass. It rained down upon the troopers below: millions of sharp fragments falling upon them. Several of the troopers shouted, looking up and swinging SMGs in their direction…

Adrienna aimed once again and took off the heads of a trooper that Gabriel had in stasis only metres away from his cover. His head swung upwards, eyebeam narrowing towards them. It was impossible to read his expression, Tali thought. Impossible to know what the geth was thinking…

"Gabriel!" Garrus yelled, grabbing Tali by the arm and pulling her through the space where the glass had once been.

Tali felt her stomach heave as they fell and, for a moment, she was sure that they were going to shatter their legs against the concrete floor. Then she felt the prickle of biotics along her skin and their descent was suddenly slowed. She looked up to see Gabriel, his eye narrowed in concentration as his biotic field lowered them to the floor.

The troopers took advantage of Gabriel's distraction and fired. Bullets peppered Gabriel's chest, cybernetic fluid spraying the air. Tali felt the biotic safety net around her die. Gravity snapped back into full force, and Garrus and Tali fell the last few metres to the floor. Tali ducked and rolled as best she could, diving behind a desk. She felt her shields shudder around her as bullets threatened to buckle them, but they held. And then she was in cover, trying desperately to regain some sense of what was going on.

Gabriel was down.

Even as she hated herself for it, Tali pushed that fact away, draining all emotions out of that fact and replacing them with a cold, logical acceptance that the geth unit was out of commission for the duration of the fight. The only reason Gabriel could matter to her in this moment was how his loss would affect the combat. That was all that mattered.

But, for a heartbeat, a part of Tali rebelled. A part of her remembered a conversation that she'd had with Liara once. Long ago. Shortly before Tiersa had been born.

Tali had been expressing concern about Garrus. She hadn't heard from him in months. At the time, she hadn't known why. Tali had known that Liara was pregnant, but she hadn't dared to ask about the father. Tali could remember feeling annoyed at Liara. The asari had been acting stranger and stranger with each conversation they had that brought them closer to the subject of her pregnancy. And any mention of Garrus seemed to draw out a blank, hurt stare in her blue eyes.

"Did you know," Liara had mused softly in response to Tali's fretting, "that almost every sentient culture in galazx has some equivalent of 'angels' in their mythologies? Everywhere—and some more than others—there are protective spirits that work as messengers for a higher power."

Tali had frowned, but Liara had continued to stare blankly ahead as she spoke.

"It was what made Archangel the…right…moniker for Garrus on Omega. All those he protected had a different name for him in their own languages, but they could all translate them to the same concept. Your translator gives you a quarian term while mine gives an asari term, but both names mean essentially the same thing. Do you have any idea how rare that is, Tali? To have such a…coincidence of cultures? Isn't that fascinating?"

At the time, Tali hadn't found it fascinating at all. But now, just for a heartbeat and one shuddering breath, Tali remembered that the name Gabriel had chosen for himself belonged to one of Earth's angels. One heartbeat. One breath. One memory. That was all the time she could afford to give Gabriel for now.

And then Tali pushed it all away.

She could hear the reassuring song of the Mantis from above and behind her. Good. Adrienna. had stayed on the second floor. Tali hadn't been sure if the young human would actually listen. Tali watched as a pair of troopers tried to approach the cover where Gabriel had fallen. And both were promptly dispatched with twin headshots.

Tali didn't understand why Adrienna was providing cover for a fallen comrade…until Gabriel pulled himself up from behind one of the lockers. His eyebeam was flickering erratically, white cybernetic fluid pulsing out onto the floor from his chest, but Gabriel was still functioning…barely. He froze a trooper across a room in a stasis bubble for barely a heartbeat, the biotics dissipating rapidly, but it was still enough time for one of Adrienna's bullets to reach its mark. Tali let herself breathe a sigh of relief.

Garrus was nowhere to be seen—Tali hadn't seen where he had rolled to once Gabriel's biotic field had collapsed. But then a trooper across from her released a ear-shattering howl. She turned to see the tip of an omni-blade emerging from the wrong side of the trooper's chest, Garrus's blood-splattered helmet just visible over the dead trooper's shoulder. Using the dead trooper as a shield, Garrus sidled across the room to join Tali behind the desk as bullets rained down upon him.

"I think," Tali said to him, ducking out to blast a trooper with her shotgun, "we're both better at being rescued than doing the rescuing. Haestrom…Omega…"

He lined up a shot with his assault rifle before coolly replying.

"I'm open to suggestions at any time."

"Are you? I was under the impression that our little band was more of a dictatorship than a democracy."

"I understand that you quarians like to get everyone's opinion on everything," Garrus said, pulling hard on the trigger and a line of troopers fell. "But we turians tend to base things on merit. So, Tali, do you have any useful suggestions? Emphasis on the 'useful' part."

"Well," Tali said, reloading her shotgun, "James was last heading in this direction. He's going to run right into the middle of this firefight. With Tiersa."

"I don't see what exactly we can do to stop that."

Tali fired off a round of shots until her heat sink whined. As she ducked back to reload, she nodded briefly to the door across the foyer from them.

"If he keeps running basically in a straight line from his last known position…"

"The man never did have much style," muttered Garrus.

"…then that door is where James is about to come through."

Garrus followed Tali's gaze, sweeping over the lines of Cerberus troopers with his visor-integrated eye. Between their position and the door had to be at least sixty troopers

"Ah," he finally said.

"'Ah' indeed," Tali agreed.

All trace of posturing was suddenly gone from Garrus's expression. For a moment, Tali wished he'd go back to bantering at her: she could use the confidence boost.

"I can get there," he said carefully.

"Garrus, I don't know if—"

"Cover me."

As Garrus dove out from behind the desk, Tali pulled out her shotgun—firing recklessly, only trying to keep the troopers from focusing their fire on Garrus as he sprinted from cover to cover. Adrienna's rifle shots hurried to keep up, and her heightened view was giving her a far better chance at defending her father than Tali had from on the ground.

But Garrus was only halfway across the foyer when, behind the lines of troopers, the door opened. And it wasn't James Vega.

Harper stood, framed in the doorway. One hand was on her hip, the other on a pistol that she held with a casual elegance. For a moment, everything stopped. Tali's finger hesitated on the trigger. Gabriel's eyebeam tilted in Harper's direction. Adrienna's rifle was mute. And the troopers turned to look at Harper, awaiting orders. Only Garrus kept moving: Tali saw him out of the corner of her eye as he took advantage of the distraction to move closer to Harper, keeping low and sprinting between lockers and desks.

But it didn't matter. Because somewhere behind Harper, beyond Tali's line of sight, a single shot echoed through the hallway. Followed by a scream of pain and fury. Tiersa's scream.

Harper's lips curled into a smile.


	21. Once and For All

**A/N:**

Here we go...the penultimate chapter...

The last chapter and the epilogue will be posted on Friday!

**Chapter 21: Once and For All**

From her position across from the door, Tali couldn't see much: only dozens of troopers surging around Harper and into the foyer, reinforcements for the already overwhelming numbers of Cerberus troops. Tali couldn't see Tiersa. She couldn't see what damage that single shot had done. But she was sure that it hadn't been a good thing for Vega.

As she watched Harper survey the chaos before her with satisfaction, Tali felt like she finally understood Harper's game. There weren't going to be negotiations this time. Harper's sole goal had been to achieve control of Tiersa. And now she had it. No posturing. No taunts. Not this time. The carnage before her was nothing more than an inconvenience that would shortly be dealt with.

Harper still wore the smile on her face as she turned to walk back through the door.

Then, something shoved through the line of troopers behind Harper. And a massive shape barrelled into her, knocking her to the ground. Harper was fast: she rolled away and was back on her feet within heartbeats, eyeing her combatant with surprise in her gaze.

Vega pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the bullets peppering across his armor as if they were nothing but annoying insects. He was a mess. Tali felt her stomach heave at the sight of his face. She guessed that the shot they had heard was Cerberus attempting to kill Vega execution-style. But he must have dodged out of the way at the last second, because the bullet had missed his skull—instead, it had punched through his cheek, the ragged edges of his face pouring blood down onto his chest.

Vega charged towards Harper again, but this time she pulled up a barrier and ducked back into the troopers. Tali was too far away to do anything with her shotgun, but Garrus crouched and started firing, trying to cover Vega. But it wasn't enough to stop Vega's shields from dying with a painful whine and, only a second later, a bullet punch through his left shoulder.

Vega staggered. Harper's fist glowed and she yanked him into the air, slamming him against the wall. From somewhere down the hallway, though, there was another burst of biotic blue and the last of the troopers in the hallway were pushed aside with a shockwave.

Tiersa limped into the doorway. She was aglow with power, but she leaned heavily against the door. Harper ran towards her, but staggered as a shot from Adrienna pounded against her barrier. The shot would have gone through the back of Harper's head without the barrier. Tali could see Tiersa's gaze flick around the room: her eyes widened as she spotted Garrus, a peculiar look on her face that made Tali suspect she didn't entirely trust that Garrus was real. Then, Tiersa looked up towards the second level to where Tali knew Adrienna was standing with her Mantis. And, at the sight of her human sister, the young asari pulled herself up a little straighter.

"Enough" Tiersa hissed to Harper, her voice still weak with pain. "I'm done with being a hostage."

She drew a singularity into existence beside Harper, but the clone barely glanced at as she dodged out of range of its gravity well. Vega pulled himself to his feet. Garrus and Adrienna were firing rapidly, but Harper remained unscathed, even as her troopers fell around her. Tali hated being trapped so far away. She rose from her cover and started to run.

Harper was ignoring the young asari and instead concentrating on the giant marine who was hurtling himself towards her once again. Harper screamed for the troopers to take him down, and Vega was bombarded by a barrage of gunfire. Bullets skidded across his armor.

Another bullet hit its mark, this time grazing his neck, but Vega didn't slow. He was close to Harper—only a meter away. And then a bullet struck him in the thigh and he went down, hard, leaving a red streak along the floor as he crashed at Harper's feet. Vega twitched, trying to pull himself up, but he fell to his knees. And Harper slid him across the floor with a casual wave of biotics.

With a roar, Tiersa rushed forwards, staggering as she did so. But now Harper turned her gaze upon Tiersa. She signalled for the troopers around her to close in. Tiersa tossed the first of the troopers back with another shockwave, but there were more behind that one and they didn't stop coming until Tiersa was completely surrounded. Harper stepped through her ranks of troops, angelically clean amidst the carnage around her.

Tali rushed forward, firing haphazardly with her shotgun, trying to distract more than anything. Further away, she saw Garrus try the same thing. Garrus and Tali's bullets bounced uselessly off the line of shielded troops that rushed forward to cover Harper. A Centurion suddenly appeared at Harper's side from amongst the ranks of troops. Tiersa threw herself at him as he approached, screaming as she pounded his chest with wave after wave of pure biotics that were untamed by any technique or strategy. But the energy just dissipated along the Centurion's shields and he bent down, flinging Tiersa over his shoulder.

Adrienna screamed her sister's name.

"Quick!" Harper commanded in a voice that was like Miranda's but not, with a contorted face that was like Miranda's but not. "Take her to the lower levels. We're out of time. We do this now. Don't let them follow. Don't let anyone follow!"

As she turned around, Adrienna clipped Harper's shoulder: blood blossoming for the first time on her pristine frame. But she only sneered at the wound for a second before she and the Centurion carrying Tiersa departed back down the hallway.

There were too many troops between them and Harper to follow: waves and waves of enemies blocking their pursuit. Tali fought against despair as she ducked into cover with Garrus. But he wasn't looking at her. His ice-blue eyes were fixed on something over her shoulder. Tali looked behind her.

And saw Gabriel. He was walking out into the middle of the foyer, dragging one leg, his missing arm socket sparking into the air as it tried to send signals to a limb that wasn't there. A few bullets collided into his exoskeleton, but—after a few shots—one of the remaining Centurions ordered the troopers to stop firing. And Tali understood why.

Gabriel's torso was glowing with a bright blue light.

"No."

It was all Tali could think of to say. Everything had gone so horribly wrong. Vega was a bloody mess by the door. Harper had recaptured Tiersa. And now Gabriel. They were going to lose him too.

"Damn it," Garrus muttered. "Twenty-seven metres. We need to find cover."

Tali heard his words, but didn't want to believe them. Garrus pulled on her arm, yanking her out of cover and practically dragging her across the room. Tali caught Gabriel's gaze as she and Garrus moved as far away from the geth unit as possible—and what she saw there, for barely an instant, was a conviction that startled her. Gabriel had made his choice.

From above, Adrienna's voice cut through the chaos: she sounded small and scared and like she was only sixteen years old.

"Dad! Something's wrong with Gabriel. What's happening? Dad!"

Confused, the Cerberus troopers around them struggled to move away from Gabriel. Garrus heaved his omni-blade across a trooper's neck and pulled Tali behind the weapons locker. Gabriel's form was growing brighter and brighter as he stepped towards the mass of panicking troopers.

Tali didn't want to watch. She turned away, looking desperately for something else to fixate her gaze on, yet the harsh eezo light stained everything around her. But Tali's gaze caught movement from behind Gabriel. And the main doors, the ones that led to the outside grounds of the facility, slid open soundlessly. She grabbed at Garrus's arm, pointing, and his eyes narrowed in confusion.

There was a starburst of blue light.

Yet it hadn't come from Gabriel.

"Stop Gabriel!" Tali screamed. "Power down!"

The light emitting from Gabriel abruptly flickered and died. He whirled around to meet her gaze, the look in his eyebeam confused and questioning. And a burst of blue biotic energy flew by the geth's head, hitting one of the troopers closest to Gabriel square in the chest.

Kaidan Alenko stepped into the foyer, his biotic aura flickering with power.

Following Kaidan was the best of the Alliance military. First, a group of marines poured into the foyer, assault rifles taking down waves of Cerberus troopers before they could find cover. Flanking them came a biotic support team, probably one that Kaidan had trained himself. They tossed troopers aside as their limbs flailed like puppets. The marines rushed forward as Kaidan tossed out another burst of biotic power. The troopers fell back, but the foyer had become a death trap. Tali saw a few scatter down the hallways, but the grim look on Kaidan's face told her everything she needed to know.

The fight was over.

For a moment, Tali and Garrus were both too stunned to do anything. But then Garrus rushed forward, joining the marines in their assault as they broke the Cerberus lines.

Tali ran over to Gabriel. As she reached him, he collapsed into her arms. She dragged him away from the chaos, trying to ignore how heavy he was and trying to ignore the trail of cybernetic fluid that he left in his wake. Tali cued up her omni-tool, not even sure where to begin making repairs.

"…This…unit…"

"Gabriel, you need to power down. You almost overloaded your processing core. I don't know what I can do to help, but I need you to preserve your strength."

"…This…unit…is grateful that you stopped…me…Creator Tali…"

"Gabriel. Power down. I mean it."

"This unit…will do as the Creator demands…" And Gabriel tilted his head. "…it only wishes to serve…"

"Yes. Please. Power down."

He did so. The light faded from his eyebeam. Tali quickly scanned the processing core, trying desperately to figure out how much damage had been done.

There was a small sound behind her.

Tali turned around to see Adrienna there. She had somehow managed to climbed down from the second floor. She was gripping the Mantis against her chest. Her brown eyes were staring at Gabriel's still form. The sound, Tali realized, was coming from her. A small, keening note. A prayer of a single word.

"Please."

Tali stood up, pulling her hands away from Gabriel and trying to make sense of the information her circuitry had gathered. She turned to Adrienna, wrapping an arm around the young human's shoulder.

"I think," she said hesitantly, "that he's going to be okay. He almost overloaded his processing core. It took a lot of damage. But it's still functional. Maybe his biotic abilities won't be as strong. He might not be able to push himself so far. But he's going to be okay."

Adrienna's shoulders sagged in relief. Then, she turned her gaze to where the marines were finishing detaining the rest of Cerberus. It was taking a team of medics to load Vega onto a stretcher. Once he was on it, they immediately started busying themselves around the marine, dispensing medi-gel with impressive efficiency and pressing gauze to the ragged, torn flesh on his face. Garrus stood over him. Vega's eyes flickered blearily. Tali caught the arm of one of the engineers, telling him to take care of Gabriel, and then she and Adrienna walked over to Vega.

"…Scars?..." he said vaguely, searching Garrus's face.

One of the medics leaned in and dispensed another round of medi-gel. Vega shock his head, trying to clear it.

"Scars…" he said, gripping the turian's arm, "…Listen…Harper is completely loco. They brought the body of the Illusive Man to the facility last week, but…Harper needed Tiersa. Because she's Lola's daughter, I think. But I couldn't figure out how it all connected. I think…I think she's going to torture her. You've gotta stop her."

"We will," Garrus promised him.

The medics seemed to have stopped most of the bleeding, but Tali had no doubts that they needed to get Vega to a real medical facility in order to finish patching him up. One of the medics, at a nod from Garrus, leaned in and administered some kind of pain killer—something stronger than the medi-gel, given how Vega's eyes rolled back into his head.

"Hey Scars," Vega said, his voice growing weak. "It…it looks like I'm gonna end up…with a face as horribly mangled as yours…"

Garrus crossed his arms.

"Somehow, I don't think you're going to be able to pull off the look, Vega. Takes a special kind of flair, you know."

"Yeah, yeah…" and James coughed, "So those scars ever give you much luck with the ladies?"

"You have no idea," Garrus said, arching a brow plate.

Vega's attempt at a grin resulted in a fresh wave of blood soaking through the gauze and one of the medics gave Garrus a dark look. Adrienna approached, resting a hand on Garrus's shoulder. And all three of them watched as the medics carried Vega away.

Kaidan was standing in the midst of his marines, ordering them around. When he saw them, he waved them over. There was blood on his forehead, but it didn't look like it was his own. Kaidan looked at them expectantly.

"This isn't finished," Garrus told him. "Harper has taken Tiersa to the lower levels."

Kaidan nodded.

"We'll cover your back. Clear the rest of the building and make sure that no other troops follow you down."

"Adrienna," Tali said softly, "you should stay here. With Gabriel."

But the human shook her head, her eyes cold.

"No. I need…I need to finish this."

Tali looked at Garrus. He looked at Adrienna for a moment and opened his mouth, but then seemed to think better of it. He seemed to realize that this was hers to finish as well. And he nodded. Kaidan was watching Adrienna carefully.

"You know," he said quietly, "after this Cerberus crisis is done, there are plans by the Alliance to move me into a different position. Since the relay network is being rebuilt, the Alliance is anticipating that galactic politics are going to become important again in the next few years. And they don't want humanity to be left in the dark. Pending the approval and cooperation of the alien governments, the Alliance wants me to head up a new SPECTRE initiative."

"Congratulations," Garrus said dryly, clearly not liking where this was headed.

"So Adrienna," Kaidan continued, avoiding Garrus's intense stare, "if you're looking for a job when you turn eighteen…"

"I think that's enough of this conversation," Garrus said, placing an arm around Adrienna's shoulder and steering her away from Kaidan. "Let's go, Junior."

She grinned at her father, shrugging out of his grip.

"I might consider it," she said casually to Kaidan over her father's shoulder, but Tali could see that the green in her eyes was glowing. "Being a SPECTRE would be pretty cool. Don't you think so, Dad?"

"I think it's not going to matter what I think," Garrus growled. "But I was hoping we could find you a slightly less dangerous hobby after this is over. Alenko, you're not helping."

Kaidan shrugged, looking not even slightly repentant as he caught Tali's eye. And Tali tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a smirk.

"Haven't you saved the galaxy enough times?" Adrienna said to Garrus. "I think it's time you let someone else have a turn."

Garrus's gaze was suddenly dark. He looked across the foyer to the door where Harper had taken Tiersa. Tali followed his gaze.

"Garrus, I don't know about you…" Tali said quietly, "…but I'm up for saving the galaxy at least one last time before turning it over to the next generation."

He nodded.

"Let's end this."


	22. Legacy

**A/N:**

Many, many thanks for everyone who read and reviewed the story. You are all awesome. So here it is...

The End!

* * *

**Chapter 22: Legacy**

The lower levels were sparse. It wasn't difficult to follow Harper's trial. They found the body of the Centurion propped up against a door at the end of a hallway. Tali couldn't tell what that meant: if it was a warning against their interference or if Harper had simply taken out her anger at her rapidly unravelling plans on the Centurion. Either way, Tali tried to ignore the Centurion's dead gaze as she leaned down to the hack the door.

The three of them snuck into the room quietly. They had entered on some kind of observation level: they crept along a balcony that ringed a circular room almost a level below them. A catwalk stretched out over the middle of the room, bisecting the circle. The room below them was some kind of research lab: a gurney was in front of several monitors whose morose beeping was the only sound in the room. The room was spotless: the bright hospital white accompanied by the hypocritical smell of antiseptic mingling with bodily fluids.

Harper was nowhere to be seen.

But Tiersa was on the floor at the edge of the room.

She was curled up in the corner furthest from the gurney, staring down at the floor. Blue blood dripped from her nose, making a puddle between her knees. Adrienna ran to the edge of the observation level, towards the top of a ladder that stretched down to the room below. She opened her mouth to call Tiersa's name, but Garrus caught her by the wrist, pulling her down so that she was flat against the floor—just as a door on the lower level opened and Harper entered. Tali ducked down and crept to where Garrus and Adrienna were, avoiding Harper's gaze as she did so.

But Harper was too fixated on her asari victim to notice the quarian, turian, and human sneaking around a level above her. She was now a strange combination of pristine and gore: her black hair shone and her pale skin glowed, but blood was crusting in splotches across her body. Tali could see the medi-gel clotting over the shoulder wound. Harper was carrying two things into the room: a massive black crate that she dragged behind her by one handle and a sword tucked under her other arm. A sword that looked sickeningly familiar. Tali felt her heart lurch in her chest.

Harper deposited the crate in the opposite end of the room, dropping it against the floor with heavy boom. She pulled out the sword, letting it trail against the floor as she approached Tiersa. The blade hissed up sparks.

"Do you know whose sword this is?"

When Tiersa did nothing except to wipe some of the blood from her face and stare at how it smeared across her palm, Harper smirked and continued.

"He was a Cerberus assassin. His name was Kai Leng. You may not know what this sword is, but I'm hoping that Shepard will. I'm hoping that it will help her understand how serious I am. This is all completely new ground, scientifically speaking. I hope that you appreciate that. But some of my research team suggested a weapon that would be familiar to her. Said that it might help to draw her attention."

Harper strode over to Tiersa and placed the blade under her blue chin. Adrienna's jaw clenched as she drew up the Mantis, aiming through the scope. Tiersa continued to stare past the sword, towards the floor. Harper used the blade to leverage Tiersa's head up, and then, before Tali could even blink, whipped the point of the blade across the base of Tiersa's chin.

The biotic freckles along Tiersa's face flared as purple blood welled along the cut.

"Do you suppose that means I have her attention?" Harper mused. "I don't know. All of this…there's no precedent for it. Completely new territory. So many unknown variables."

Harper strode back over to the crate and, as she undid the clasps, Tali realized that it wasn't a crate at all.

It was a coffin.

As the last of the metal siding fell away, Tali could see the bones stretched out along the velvet lining. The bones looked aged, but had clearly been expertly cleaned of their meat long ago. They lay, sedately, in a roughly human arrangement beneath a glass covering.

Still, Tali couldn't help but gasp when she saw the skull. Instead of empty sockets, the Illusive Man's eyes still glittered their eerie blue, staring out at the world around him. As if he could still see them. As if, somehow, he knew they were all there. Watching them. Waiting for rebirth.

Tali shook her head, telling herself to think rationally. The Illusive Man's eyes were just some kind of implant. They were not a sign of life. He was still dead and that was all he was. Just bones.

Harper laid a milk-white hand over the glass for a moment, bowing her head.

"They found him amongst the Citadel wreckage. He was in pieces, of course, but they found enough to bury. Or, at least, they were going to bury him—but I ensured we intercepted him first. My father. This is what he was reduced to. This."

When she looked up, Tali could see tears clinging to Harper's lavender eyes: pretty crystals on the verge of shattering against the coffin's glass cover. But then a strange light seemed to enter her gaze. And, for the first time, she didn't look much like Miranda at all. Miranda—even at the worst of it—had always been in control.

Yet Harper…Harper was clearly on the verge of a breakdown. Tali glanced over at Garrus and she could tell by the way his eyes narrowed that the turian had come to that same conclusion. And Tiersa—though still slightly dazed—was fixing Harper with an almost curious stare.

"But they didn't even find this much of Shepard. No bones for her. No bones." Harper's voice had taken on a giggling, hysterical quality. She smiled down at the bones for a moment. And then, suddenly, she pounded her fist against the glass.

"It's not fair!" she hissed, barely whispering. "She got the immortality that was meant for him. It was meant for him! He had prepared. He was ready. He was going to live forever. He was going to guide humanity into a new age. It was meant for him."

Harper turned away from the coffin, looking across the room to Tiersa.

"But it doesn't matter now. Shepard has to bring him back. The way she did the turian. Or I'm going to kill you."

And Harper smiled as she drew up the sword.

Tiersa raised her head and, this time, it was obvious that her blue eyes were clear. She placed her palms on the ground—first one, then the other—slowly and not without effort. But then she staggered to her feet. And she began to limp towards Harper. One deliberate step at a time.

"You're an idiot," Tiersa hissed.

Harper's eyes narrowed.

"What are you talking about?"

"Shepard is not going to bring her worst enemy back from the dead. Back into the galaxy when she's no longer around to protect it from him. Are you completely insane?"

"Oh," Harper said, smiling again, "but I think she will. We already know that she's willing to break the laws of death for the people she loves. She brought the turian back. Did you know that?"

Tiersa's features were clouded with confusion for a moment. She stopped her approach. Then, hesitantly:

"I thought…I thought I was seeing things…Garrus is alive?" And then, to herself, she whispered one word. "…Adrienna…"

Tali glanced over to Garrus. His mandibles beat against his jawline twice in quick succession.

"Yes," Harper said slowly, sounding marginally irritated. "He's alive because Shepard brought him back from the dead. And I'm sure Shepard will be perfectly happy to do the same for my father."

"Why?"

"Because I'll kill you if she doesn't. And you're her daughter."

Whatever reaction Harper expected—the young asari cowering in fear perhaps—Tiersa didn't provide it. Instead, in the deadly stillness of the room, Tiersa's laughter was dark and broken.

"Why are you laughing?" Harper's lavender eyes narrowed at her questioningly, uncertainty creeping across her perfect features for the first time. Then, she tried to regain some of her confidence and Harper put on a mocking tone. "Are you broken, Little Lola? Did we break you?"

Tiersa's voice was unnervingly steady when she raised her eyes to Harper and spoke her next words.

"You don't know anything about me. Shepard didn't want me. Shepard didn't know about me."

Tiersa's voice was fierce but sad, some expression beyond what Tali could understand. She fixed Harper in her blue stare and her next words were little more than a whisper.

"My mother mind-raped Shepard to make me. Did you think that the act was consensual? Did you really think that Shepard would care at all about me?"

Harper stared at her.

"Hell," said Tiersa, turning away, "she'd probably thank you for getting rid of me."

Harper's lips were now squeezed into the thinnest of grimaces. Tali knew that Harper could see the truth in Tiersa's eyes—but that she didn't want to believe it. Her grip tightened, almost imperceptivity, around the sword's hilt.

But Tiersa was suddenly glowing with a biotic aura. And there was something…off…about the way the aura danced around the asari. As if the biotics had a will of their own. The biotic power seemed to coalesce around Tiersa's wounds like some gathering storm that, rather than weakening from her injuries, was gaining strength and rage from the purple blood oozing out onto the floor.

"You need to shoot her," Tali whispered to Adrienna. "Tiersa is useless to Harper now. She'll kill her."

"Or they'll kill each other," said Garrus quietly, watching how Harper's biotic aura sprang up in response to Tiersa's.

Adrienna raised the Mantis to her eye, breathing deeply as she networked with the rifle.

Fists clenched, Tiersa stepped closer to Harper—too close. Harper grabbed her, twisting her around and placing the blade of the sword firmly against Tiersa's neck. But Tiersa seemed completely unperturbed. Her biotics only strengthened. Tali could see Harper begin to sweat from the proximity of the energies coursing across the young asari's body. And Tiersa continued to speak.

"You made a mistake, Harper," she said. "You brought me here without really knowing my full story. Without knowing who I was. So let me tell you."

Harper pressed the sword further into her neck, but Tiersa's voice was steady.

"You see," she said, "I am my mother's daughter. I did not come here without information. I know all about you, Eva Harper. Probably more than you know about yourself. I know about your sisters. One of them—Miranda Lawson—died aiding Shepard during the Reaper Wars. But the other, Orianna, survived and has a family of her own. Did you know that? Did you know that it is possible for Lawson's clones to have a normal life? You don't have to be the monster you are."

Something flickered in Harper's lavender eyes: the memory, perhaps, of a long-since abandoned dream stirring at the young asari's words.

"But you were sold to the Illusive Man in exchange for him involving Henry Lawson in the Sanctuary projects," Tiersa continued, pity creeping into her voice now. " You never really had a chance. I don't know how much time you spent under the wing of the leader of the most dangerous terrorist organization in the galaxy—"

"He…he was my father," Harper stammered. "I loved him. He loved me."

"—but when he and his dreams died, you decided that neither of those things should happen. You recalled the Cerberus troops you could find and managed to get them working under the Alliance. And you've been slowly moving agents into positions of power for the last few decades. So that when you bring your father back, he'll have the entire government of Earth prepared to receive him. Prepared to welcome him as the next leader."

"How…how could you possibly know all this?"

"There's more. You were named for a woman. A woman who worked with Jack Harper—that's your father's real name—in the early days of the First Contact War. A woman who died. Horribly. Did you even know that, Harper?"

"I—"

Harper's hands were shaking.

"You need to take the shot," Tali said instantly. "You need to take it now."

"I can't," hissed Adrienna, despair clouding her voice. "They're too close now. They're too damn close. I'm as likely to take Tiersa's head off as I am Harper's."

"Then you need to find a new angle," Garrus growled.

Adrienna barely glanced around the room before the solution came to here.

"The catwalk" Adrienna muttered. "I'll do it from there."

She began to move across to it, but Tali grabbed her by the arm.

"Adrienna, you're too exposed there. It goes right over the room. Harper will see you."

Garrus nodded.

"She's right."

"I don't care. There's no time. We have to save her."

"I'll do it," Garrus said.

And, before she could protest, he grabbed the Mantis away from Adrienna and sprinted down the catwalk.

Harper saw the movement. She kept the sword pressed against Tiersa's neck, but she used her other fist to throw a burst of biotic power up into the rafters—towards exactly where Garrus had been only a second before. The light was blinding. But as Tali regained her vision, she saw that Harper had missed Garrus. He was concealed in the shadows, now out of Harper's line of sight. But lining her up in his own.

As Harper looked desperately up to the observation level, Tali could see that her eyes were lit up with a madness of desperation—the kind of madness that only takes those who know that they are about to lose everything. Tiersa gagged as the sword dug into her throat, drawing blood. And, for a moment, Tali feared that it was over. But, even as the purple blood ran along the sword and dripped onto the floor, it became clear that Harper had only cut the edge of Tiersa's flesh.

"I'll kill her!" she shouted up to the rafters. "I'll do it. Show yourself!"

Adrienna pulled out her pistol and fired one quick shot down into the room. It buried itself into the gurney and Harper wheeled—away from Garrus's location—towards where Adrienna and Tali were hidden.

"You're surrounded," Tiersa said quietly, stating the obvious.

"Shut up!" Harper hissed. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter."

She pulled Tiersa over to the coffin.

"Shepard!" she screamed, hysterical now. "I will kill her! I won't believe that she doesn't matter to you! If you brought the turian back from the dead, you'll save her. I know you will. I know—"

"You're right," said Tiersa. "It does matter."

But there was something odd about Tiersa's voice. There was something…almost subharmonic about it.

"And I will not let you bring him back," Tiersa continued.

And Tali realized that Tiersa was speaking with two voices. One was her own. And one…

Tali could hear Shepard.

As they watched, the biotic aura around Tiersa suddenly increased in density and formed into the vague outline of a figure. A human woman. The ghostly figure suddenly yanked the blade away from Tiersa's throat. There was a roar—a roar that Tali could feel not just through the air, but through her very bloodstream. It coursed through her cells and she knew—she simply knew—that everyone and everything around her could feel it too.

The human figure rushed forward in a biotic blur of light and fury that hit Harper in the chest. In the splitsecond that Harper staggered backwards, away from Tiersa, a shot rang out. And Harper collapsed to the floor, red blood leaking from her chest.

Tiersa stood over her.

"And there's something else you should have known about me," she said down to Harper's gasping face as the last vestiges of her life leaked away. "I am also Shepard's daughter. And you should have known that she was never without friends."

As Harper gave one last, shuddering gasp, her purple eyes turned cold and glassy.

And then, soundlessly, Tiersa collapsed onto the floor.

Adrienna vaulted over the edge of the observation level, landing hard onto the floor, but rolling to break her fall. Tali rushed for the ladders, not trusting herself to manage Adrienna's expressway. Garrus swung down from the catwalk to join her and, as they rushed down into the room, they saw that Adrienna had pulled Tiersa's head into her lap.

"Please don't be dead. Don't be dead," Adrienna chanted. Tears trailed along the blue markings on her cheeks before falling onto Tiersa's face. "You can't be dead. We're sisters. I'm not going to let you die."

Tali rushed forward, desperately pulling out some medi-gel. And then Tiersa's eyes fluttered open: her blue eyes shining like twin singularities.

"…Adrienna?.." Tiersa muttered. "I was…I was so far away. There was a field of stars and…and I saw her. She told me she was proud of me. That…that I was a gift."

Tali could see the tears welling at corners of the asari's eyes, so she bent down and embraced her—mindful of her wounds, of course. Tiersa returned the embrace gratefully.

"Tali, where would I be without you?" she said.

Then, suddenly, she sat up. Adrienna had to dodge to narrowly miss having her nose collide with Tiersa's forehead.

"Adrienna!" Tiersa said urgently. "Your father. Garrus. Garrus is alive. He's alive. I know she wasn't lying about that. We have to find him. We—"

She stopped as Garrus stepped into her field of vision, the Mantis resting across his shoulders.

"Well," he said casually, "who did you think took that shot?"

Tiersa stared at him for a moment, but then a smile—a smile that reminded Tali so much of Shepard—broke across her features.

"I…I thought Adrienna took the shot…" the young asari stammered. "How…?"

"It was a good shot," Adrienna supplied, "so she assumed it was me. Easy enough to explain, Dad."

"Right, Junior," Garrus said sarcastically, "I'm pretty sure my shots have an air of professionalism that you have yet to achieve. Next time, you might want to take notes, so that someday you—"

He broke off as Tiersa half-limped, half-ran, across the room and into his arms. After only a moment's surprise, he returned the embrace. When she looked up into his face, her blue eyes were shining with tears.

"You were dead."

"Shepard brought me back."

"I know, but…but it's just…"

"There's a lot to explain," Tali offered, draped one of Tiersa's arms across her shoulders,

Garrus took the other. Between the two of them, they carried Tiersa out of this hellish place. As they reached the door, Tali saw Adrienna stop and turn around. She was staring at the Illusive Man's skull as it lay beside Harper's still body: the eyes were still glowing blue in their sockets.

"Come on Junior," Garrus said quietly. "Leave the dead alone."

Adrienna nodded, turning away.

"All she wanted was to bring her father back," she said softly.

"No," Garrus said, shaking his head. "No, don't ever think that." And he fixed Adrienna with a cold stare. "What she wanted was to bring her father back so he could take control of the galaxy."

"I know. I know that she needed to be stopped. I just…" Adrienna turned away from the skull to look at Harper's still form. Her eyes were still open as the blood pooled beneath her head. Adrienna bent down and, carefully, closed the eyelids. "…It's just that I understand."

"Harper wanted power."

"I don't think so," she said quietly, meeting her father's stare with one of her own. "I think that all she wanted was her father back."

Garrus's mandibles flickered against his face. For a moment, Tali thought that he was going to continue to argue the point. But then, he turned away. Away from the remains of the Illusive Man. Away from Harper, somehow beautiful even in death. Away from the darkness of this place.

And Tali knew that she, too, was ready to leave. But, as Adrienna walked over to join them, Tiersa suddenly broke the silence, twisting around in their arms so that she could look at Garrus.

"She remembers you," Tiersa said softly, looking into his face. "She says that she still remembers you. That she hasn't forgotten you."

Tiersa clenched her jaw, looking at all of them. For a moment, Tali thought she could see Shepard in her eyes once again.

"She says that she hasn't forgotten any of us. And that we'll never be alone."


	23. Epilogue: Apotheosis

**Chapter 23: Epilogue: Apotheosis**

There is very little of her left in the galaxy now. Once, she was a woman and a warrior. Now she is something else entirely. She knows this. These thoughts often course through her existence because something about them still troubles her. They are the lure of mortality calling to her through the remnants of that person that once she had been.

Shepard.

But she is no longer that person. She has been fractured through the lives of too many others, split into too many facets and pieces, so that now her sense of self and individuality and personhood has been rendered an archaic, almost naïve, notion from her past. She knows that the core of her personality came from somewhere, but it has been splintered and spliced into the DNA of every other thing in the galaxy. And now she is so far beyond recognition that she feels like a beam of light refracting through a crystal into a rainbow of shades.

But what she was…that Shepard part of her still lingers. Shepard is nothing more than a shade, a shadow, a ghost. A spectre. But one that still holds a kind of power that, sometimes, forces her new self to listen. To watch.

To remember that once she was human.

* * *

Somewhere, there is an elderly quarian, standing beside a magnificent house and looking out over a cliff. She is watching the stars awaken in her vision as Rannoch turns away to the night. _She is important_. The Shepard part of her whispers incessantly, commanding her to watch. _This is important_. _Not to the galaxy, but to you_. And the quarian female turns as another quarian approaches her—a son, Shepard realizes—carrying a small child in his arms that has only recently been brought into the galaxy. The older quarian takes the child, laughing as she holds the new creature with such love. Then, she turns and walks with the other back into the house where Shepard knows, as she knows everything, an entire retinue of 'Zorah vas Rannochs await within. Children and grandchildren and even a few great-grandchildren filling that house with love and laughter.

There is peace in this: in endings. There is peace for Tali here as she turns away from that cliff: that moment of dangerous but unrealized possibilities. And walks to the house: that moment of legacy.

* * *

Somewhere, there is an asari, still young by her peoples' standards, watching out the cockpit windows of a human vessel. The ship is flying through a nebula. The galaxy holds many pockets of these places where new life is born, where death is recycled into new stars and then new planets and then new life. Now, the being that was once Shepard knows them all. But the asari at the window has never been to a nebula before. Her bright blue eyes widen as the ship cuts through the clouds of primordial stars and she can see, for the first time, a massive space port. _No, not just a space port. The Citadel. A new Citadel_. Shepard can remember when she saw it for the first time as well. And, for a moment, she remembers what it was like to feel what she knows the asari is feeling. _Tiersa. Her name is Tiersa. And she is mine, whether I asked for her or not_.

Those feelings…those feelings are complicated, so instead she chooses to feel a glow of pride: this new Citadel was not some archeological find built by an ancient species, but created out of a newfound cooperation between all the galaxy's peoples. And she knows that Tiersa has come here to discover her destiny, just as Shepard once did.

"Tiersa T'soni? The Council is requesting your presence."

The voice comes over the comm. The young asari takes one last glance out of the window, takes one last deep breath. And she turns to walk back out to the ship's bridge.

"I'm ready," she says to the empty room.

There is peace in this: in beginnings. There is peace in being the star waiting at the edges of the nebula. Waiting to be born into blazing light.

* * *

Somewhere, there is a human, turian facial markings blue against her cheeks, as she presses the scope of a rifle against her face. Below her, the red condemnation of the laser sight dances across the helmet of a man, but he does not notice the red dot as he pulls a weeping salarian closer against his chest, pressing his pistol against her forehead. The sniper's partner is trying to distract the man, trying to talk him down, and Shepard can appreciate how, the instant the red dot appears on the man's forehead, the partner does not even blink. Shepard sees something familiar in the partner's face as well, something that reminds her of a friend she had to sacrifice once, long ago, in another life.

And then there is a shout.

"Hey! You!"

The man pulls the gun away from the hostage's head and instead points it up, directly at the sniper who has, inexplicably, just stood up and given away her position.

But there is another as well. Three. Always three. Shepard can remember the perfect balance of three: the points of a triangle instinctively shifting in relation to each other, the implicit symmetry of the arrangement. The geth unit steps out from behind a crate, freezing both the man and his hostage in place as he coats their skin in blue biotic energy. The red dot freezes on the man's forehead. And Adrienna takes the shot.

Shepard can feel the shattering of the man's skull, DNA screaming against the dark pull of death that swiftly engulfs the man, carrying him away into eternity. A part of her goes with him. But Shepard remembers how she hated hostage situations and she is glad that the turian-faced human took the shot when she did.

The sniper climbs down from the building she was perched on, watching while her partner comforts the weeping hostage by simply reaching out and touching the pads of his fingers to the back of her wrist. The salarian nods: the unspoken binary exchange communicating more in a nanosecond than trying to explain verbally to the salarian that she is safe now. The geth walks over as well, but distances himself from the exchange, looking almost uncomfortable in how his head is tilted perpetually to the side.

Once the salarian has been safely handed off to a pair of medical personnel, the partner turns to the sniper, who is only now carefully replacing her rifle onto the back of her armor and nodding at the geth—an acknowledgement of a job well done.

"Alenko is just going to love hearing about that little stunt you pulled today, Vakarian," he says, grinning.

"Alright, Williams," she mutters back, trying her best not to match his grin. "I guess next time I'll let you save your own ass after you blow your cover. Alenko's not going to be too keen on hearing about that either."

He shrugs.

"Rumour is that the Council is instating another batch of full-authorized SPECTREs next month," he says casually. "If we get the call, we won't have to worry about anything Alenko says anymore."

"This unit," the geth says, stepping forward, "has calculated that Kaidan Alenko's long history of service in the name of galactic peace enables him to predict the optimal course of action with seventy-three percent accuracy. Therefore, it is logical that his suggestions be taken under consideration."

"Gabriel's right," Adrienna says. "Alenko knows what he's doing. Besides, he's the one who forwards our names to the Council,"—she grins wickedly—"so that's at least another month of doing whatever he says."

"Seriously, Vakarian," Williams says, dropping his voice, "I wish you'd just be more careful."

"Why?"

The word holds a hidden dare. But he does not answer her question, instead turning away to walk back down the street. Adrienna and Gabriel exchange a look—a remnant of a previous conversation, perhaps, regarding the young man who is deliberately not looking in Adrienna's direction—and then both the human and the geth walk after him. Shepard watches as they walk down the street and she feels a pang of sadness because she once had this: the thrill of doing something right, the reassurance of having a team watching her back.

She realizes that she misses this part of mortality more than anything else: the ceaseless threat of losing it.

There is peace in this: in saving the galaxy, one mission at a time. This was where Shepard found her own kind of peace, long ago. And she knows that Adrienna, the daughter she never had, will as well.

* * *

Everywhere, there are others. A man and a machine, walking together hand-in-hand across a freshly-plowed field. An admiral, crossing his thick arms behind his head and leaning back in a desk chair that is too small for his bulk, as he contemplates what new nickname he will devise to torture the newest-appointed member of the security board. A krogan telling a story to the clusters of wide-eyed children sitting around the base of his throne: she hears him mention her name in his familiar, rumbling voice and the eyes of the little krogan all light up at its invocation.

All these moments happen at different times throughout history, but the part of her that is still Shepard makes note of them all. All these moments mean something to her.

But there is one that means more than all the others.

* * *

Somewhere, there is Garrus Vakarian, bleeding out onto the rubble and hoping that his last moments can give his daughters a chance to escape. And she is there. She is not ready to let him go. And she knows that he is not ready to go. The galaxy still needs saving. And so, when he stumbles for what should be the last time, she is there to catch him. She lifts him back onto his feet and gives him a command that she expects him to follow.

He does.

And then, someday, she finds him again. This time, he is ready to go. And she finds…she finds that she is finally ready to let him go. The galaxy will always need saving, but there are others now. Her legacy, and his, is that the galaxy will never want for protectors. And so this time, when he stumbles, she does not catch him.

She lets him fall.

When he pulls himself up onto his feet, he is standing in a field of stars that stretches out into infinity. The stars are whispering stories as they shine. Shepard can tell, by the confusion in his blue eyes, that Garrus recognizes the voices coming from the stars. Liara: soft and thoughtful. Jack: yelling a warcry. Thane: muttering a prayer. Mordin: muttering about seashells. Old times. Old memories. Old people. Words and light braided together into dreaming about their time of existence in the galaxy.

She walks through the stars towards him.

"Hey Vakarian!" she calls, a smile playing across her lips.

He hesitates, suddenly aware of what this means. He has been here before, of course. He remembers. She sees it in how his mandibles flick against the side of his jaw.

"Shepard…I…"

But he seems to realize that he does not need words. Shepard shines brighter than all the stars. He realizes that he is at her side again. And that he never has to leave her again.

"Come on," she says, wrapping her familiar hand around his arm. "You promised to buy me a drink."

And together they walk off into the stars.


End file.
